


After You Change

by Llwydyn



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bobbi & Mack's secret, But eventual Skyelance, Canon Huntingbird, Drama, F/M, Inhumans (Marvel), Learning to Live with Powers, post-2x10 speculation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2015-04-17
Packaged: 2018-03-18 15:51:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 43,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3575046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Llwydyn/pseuds/Llwydyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raina had said the Obelisk would give new life, but all it had brought was the death of a dear friend - until strange occurrences force Skye to realize that it's done something to her, too. Whether the change is more like life or death has yet to be determined. Meanwhile, Bobbi and Mack have something up and running, and SHIELD is under attack by mysterious forces. Canon compliant through the mid-season finale (with SPOILERS through 2x10).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By request for more Skyelance (a desire which I completely understand!), I'm transferring this over bit by bit from another site where I started it in December, not realizing it would become...huge. I'm hoping to post a few new chapters every few days until it's caught up! Enjoy! :)

Before her eyes, Trip was transforming.

The mist had thrown him against the wall like a blast from a grenade, and now he was pinned there, staring at Skye. His eyes were pleading, and his lips moved wordlessly as he began turning to stone.

Like the Hydra agent she had killed with the Obelisk in the building far above them.

Skye tried to reach out, to rescue him, but she felt as heavy as stone herself, feet rooted to the floor and arms dead weight, unresponsive at her sides.

She could only watch, trapped in her own body, as stone crept up Trip's arms and shoulders to his neck, his beautiful living skin fading to dull gray. His face was the last thing to change, his lips hissing out the first sound of her name before they were petrified. Then he was gone.

And in a second, he crumbled to pieces, nothing but fine dust on the floor.

"No!" Skye shouted desperately, straining helplessly against a force she couldn't see. "NOOOOO!"

The chamber began to shake.

* * * * * * *

She awoke, drenched in sweat, to her room at the Playground shaking in real life, her few personal knickknacks skittering on the shelves. The earthquake was a strong one, but not enough to motivate her to dive for cover.

After a minute or so, the shaking subsided, and Skye let out a shuddery breath.

A week.

It had been one week since Puerto Rico. A week since she'd seen the Obelisk open and the crystals emerge from inside it. A week since she'd broken out of whatever cocoon had enveloped her to see Triplett, turned to stone and then disintegrating before her eyes.

Skye blinked back tears. She was surprised this was the first nightmare she'd had about it. Of course, she'd been bottling things up pretty tightly since then. There was too much emotion locked up in the events of that day to access and still be able to maintain her composure. And she needed to maintain her composure.

Puerto Rico had left everyone devastated. The sweetness of taking down Whitehall and preventing mass civilian casualties had been completely overshadowed by the death of Agent Triplett.

"My acceptable loss number was zero," Coulson had confided to her brokenly on the way back to base. His reddened eyes had shown Skye clearly just how torn up her Director was by the loss.

Not that anyone was unaffected. Simmons, especially, had spent an inordinate amount of time crying. Some days it seemed like there was barely enough morale and emotional stability on the team to keep things going. Skye had learned from Agent May the skills necessary to keep herself under control. So that's what she'd been doing.

Skye took a deep breath and let herself briefly remember that day. She still couldn't believe Coulson had followed her after Raina. And Trip had followed them both. He had pulled all the charges just in time, apparently, saving them all. And then he had come into the chamber. It was still surreal, even in memory.

After everything went down, Mack had had to half-carry Skye back to the plane, overcome as she was by emotion and exhaustion. The Obelisk hadn't been a weapon of mass destruction after all. Just a weapon of small-scale, agonizing destruction for those caught in the room with it.

She would have thought it was nothing more than that, but for what happened to Raina. When the once-lovely con artist broke out of her cocoon, she had shockingly morphed into something hideous - spikes protruding from her skin, fingers twisted and deformed like a witch in a fairy tale. It was ironic, Skye reflected with bitter amusement. After so long wanting to change, that's what Raina had become.

Skye wondered whether she was disappointed, or whether she welcomed her new, awful state with her characteristic wide-eyed idealism. There was no way to know. Raina had shoved her way out of the chamber past a stunned and grief-stricken Skye, Mack, and Coulson, and they hadn't seen her since. Not that Skye was sure she wanted to.

She shuddered. _Makes me even more glad the Obelisk didn't work on me._

Skye's father - Cal; it seemed easier, less personal, to think of him as Cal - had said that it would give her a gift. But she hadn't received any gift. Unless you counted the endless ache in her chest and the suffocating sense of guilt. She had come out just the same as before, only a thousand times more broken.

She was the reason Trip had gone down there. If she hadn't followed Raina, the obsessed woman could have gone through her grotesque change all by herself, and Trip would still be alive. It was her fault he was gone.

Skye's face crumpled in grief. A tear rolled down her cheek as an aftershock rippled through the base, providing a welcome distraction from her thoughts.

_This is so weird. We're in New England, not L.A. What's up with the earthquakes?_

Skye rolled over and checked her clock. 9am. May had been letting her sleep lately, waiting until midday to do their training. Skye had a feeling May was trying to provide her with as much distraction as possible during the day and as much chance as possible to sleep at night.

She decided to get up and make sure all the shaking wasn't some project of Fitz's and Simmons' gone horribly wrong and threatening to blow the place up. Although, if it was, there would probably be an alarm going off. The absence of one was reassuring.

Skye pulled on decent clothes, didn't bother with shoes or socks, and padded barefoot down to Coulson's office. She found Agent May watching a bank of video feeds in the room downstairs.

"What's with all the seismic activity?" Skye asked abruptly.

May shrugged. "It's unusual for this area, but it's not unheard of. None of it seems strong enough to worry about," she replied reassuringly. She appraised Skye carefully, noticing the puffiness of her eyes and the redness of her nose. "You okay?" she asked with gentleness.

Skye shook her head, blinking back tears as she refused to let herself break down.

In an uncharacteristic show of comfort, May stood and walked over to Skye, gently drawing the younger woman into her arms. "We all miss him," she whispered compassionately.

Skye nodded, burying her face in May's shoulder. She took in the comfort May offered, without allowing it to penetrate too deeply into her heart. That would just make her sob. And life was too busy and too hard, and her job too important, to spend time sobbing.


	2. Two Weeks

Two weeks.

Nearly two weeks since Puerto Rico, and Skye awoke, gasping, in the dead of night from another nightmare in which she'd been helplessly watching Triplett change into stone.

And the earth was shaking again. The little hula girl, saved from Skye's van so long ago, took a nosedive off the shelf as Skye lunged to catch her before she hit the ground. It was a welcome distraction from the emotional aftermath of her dreams.

Earthquakes seemed to trigger her nightmares, she realized groggily, as the rumbling began to subside. She reasoned it was probably because her unconscious brain associated the shaking sensation with the earthquake that had been triggered by the Obelisk and then filled in the rest of the scene in her dreams. She had always thought it was weird how dreams could work backwards like that.

Skye flopped back onto her pillow and rubbed her eyes, staring at the ceiling. This dream had been worse than the last: the sense of horror and helplessness had been much stronger. Trip had screamed out in pain while he was changing, rather than trying to say her name. Skye wasn't sure she wanted to go back to sleep if more of that was waiting. Especially since there might be aftershocks to trigger more nightmares. She shivered, fighting down the wave of panic that washed over her.

As if on cue, an aftershock shivered through the base.

No. More sleep was definitely not happening tonight.

Skye shook herself, pulled on a pair of socks, and opened her door. The dim nighttime lights of the Playground illuminated empty passageways. If the earthquake had woken anyone else - which it must have, in a base full of hyper-vigilant spies - they had all gone back to sleep.

Skye shuffled down to the lab to retrieve her laptop, noticing as she got closer that the light was on. Inside, she found Simmons in her pajamas, sweeping up shattered glass from several beakers that had fallen off the counter in the quake.

Skye stopped short in the doorway. "Any chemical spills?" she asked cautiously.

Simmons shook her head, glancing up. "No," she replied shortly. "Thankfully, all the chemicals were put away." She brushed her hair back out of her face and sighed. "At least we have plenty of beakers."

Skye smiled weakly, skirting the broken glass on her way to grab her laptop. She hesitated, then opened it, figuring she'd stay here where there was someone to talk to. Company sounded nice.

Simmons finished sweeping and tossed the broken glass into the trash. "I came down here to make sure all the instruments were secure," she said absently, beginning to fuss over the microscope and the centrifuge. She frowned. "I thought we were done with this after the other day. But apparently this part of the world has chosen now to become particularly seismically active." Her brow furrowed. "It's peculiar. There have only been a handful of strong earthquakes in this area in the last hundred years. But both this one and the quake the other day must have been at least a magnitude 4.8. I think tonight's may have been even stronger."

Skye nodded, studying the other woman's face. Simmons was chattering the way she often did when she was trying to keep her mind off something. Skye had a feeling she knew what it was.

"How are you holding up?" she asked gently.

Simmons paused without looking at her, her lip beginning to tremble before she carried on securing the instruments. "Not particularly well," she admitted, glancing up reluctantly to make eye contact with Skye, then looking back at the microscope. When she continued, her voice was very quiet. "I've been having horrible nightmares. Usually I'm talking with Agent Triplett, and we're laughing, and then suddenly he's gone, and I can't find him. And then I realize that l'll never see him again." A tear slipped down her cheek, and she absently brushed it away, looking back up at Skye with brown eyes that were watery and mournful. "He was just...such a lovely person, you know?"

Skye nodded. "I know," she said quietly. "He was always upbeat, even when it looked like we were up against impossible odds."

Simmons nodded, smiling through her tears. "He was, truly, the most courageous and dependable person I ever knew." A little, gasping sob escaped her lips. "When he heard that you and Coulson had gone down into the city, he didn't hesitate for a moment. He just grabbed the rope and flung himself back into the tunnel."

Though Skye knew she didn't mean for them to be, Simmons' words felt like a punch to the gut. The gnawing guilt that now always ached within her chest grew suddenly sharper, until she felt as if she couldn't breathe. She pressed her lips into a painful, thin line, raising her eyes despairingly up toward the ceiling, and hardly noticed the glassware tinkling in the cabinets as another aftershock rippled through the base.

Simmons, bless her heart, had her eyes covered by her hands now, blissfully unaware of how her reminiscence had affected Skye. Skye forced herself to take a deep breath, to calm down, to bring her heart rate down. She couldn't bring Trip back. The only thing she could do now was to be here for her friend.

Skye walked over to Simmons and hugged her, noticing how frail the petite scientist felt in her arms. "We all miss him," she said softly, echoing May's words to her the other day. "We all miss him."

Simmons buried her face in Skye's shoulder and wept freely.

* * * * * * *

Skye walked the broken woman back to her bunk a little while later, hoping Simmons could get some more sleep before morning, now that she'd cried out some of her grief. Skye herself didn't plan on any more sleep that night.

She wandered down to the kitchen and started a pot of coffee, then rummaged around for an acceptable mug. She ended up pulling out the "I hate Mondays" mug with the ugly cat on it, a half-smile tugging at her lips. Trip had brought the thing into the base as a joke, and after the chaos from Hydra's attack on the UN had subsided, he and Skye had shared a session of uncontrollable giggling over Coulson's reaction to it.

It was a fitting tribute to Trip to make use of it.

Skye filled the mug with hot coffee and brought it over to the couch, setting the mug down on the coffee table for a moment to let it cool a little. She leaned back into the couch cushions, closing her eyes.

That mug was a perfect symbol of Trip's character, really. Skye opened her eyes and stared at it. He had always been a joker, in that gentle, thoughtful way he had. Always a caretaker, looking out for everyone both physically and emotionally. Never ruffled, even in the face of great danger and impossible circumstances. She had taken him for granted - perhaps they all had - and now there was a hole in their team that no one could fill.

Sometimes she thought it would have been better if she had died instead of him.

Skye gasped and shut her eyes tightly, the image of that stupid cat burned into her vision as regret and grief overwhelmed her. She drew a deep breath, making the decision to allow herself to break down and cry.

But her indulgence of her emotions was cut short by a sharp rattling sound, followed immediately by a crash. Skye's eyes flew open, her sobs dying in her throat as she stared in astonishment.

The mug had shattered into a thousand pieces.


	3. A New Normal

For a moment, Skye just stared. Shards of the broken mug lay all over the table, scattered across the floor, across her lap. The thought abruptly struck her that she should make sure there weren't any in her skin.

Upon inspection, she found two small slivers of ceramic stuck into her right arm. She hadn't even felt them go in, distracted as she had been by the shock of the mug breaking, but the pain of pulling them out brought her back to her senses. She realized she should probably do something about the growing puddle of coffee dripping onto the carpet.

She jumped up to grab towels, her thoughts swirling. What on earth would make a mug do that? Had it been cracked? Was the coffee just way too hot?

She looked around quickly and checked the security cameras to make sure there was no one nearby with a weird piece of tech that could have caused the mug to break. But the hallways were empty. Everyone else was still in bed.

Skye tossed the towels onto the puddle to start soaking it up and began collecting the broken pieces of ceramic to throw away.

Of course, the mug was a piece of junk Trip had picked up for fifty cents somewhere. Probably prone to breaking. Still...

_A crack, I could understand. But to shatter like that? With that much force?_

Skye sighed, tossing the fragments in the trash, then began to scrub at the carpet. She didn't have an explanation. And honestly, with everything else that was going on in life, she didn't have the mental capacity left to try to figure it out. It was just one more weird thing. Her life practically revolved around weird things now, and as long as it wasn't a dangerous weird thing, she was just going to let it go.

After all, it wasn't like it was going to shatter again.

* * * * * * *

Their first mission back in the field was supposed to be a simple one: four Hydra scientists, two guards, one computer system full of intel to steal.

Except there were six guards. And two of the scientists were apparently also combat-trained. May, Bobbi, and Hunter had borne the brunt of the firefight and close combat, while Skye had been responsible for hacking the system. They'd hoped to destroy the lab, but they'd had to retreat with it still intact. At least the virus Skye had seeded into the system would wreak some serious havoc on the progress of their research.

And they had made it out with the intel and everybody still alive, though Bobbi had a minor gunshot wound to the leg and Hunter looked like he'd been in a bar fight with a bunch of Marines.

_Heck, maybe they_ were _Marines before they joined Hydra._

Skye buckled herself into the seat on the end, next to Hunter, and drew a deep breath as the quinjet lifted into the air.

Honestly, it felt good to be back in the field again, after more than two weeks of inactivity. She knew Coulson was just trying to give everybody time to grieve and process what had happened, as well as to catch their breath after the breakneck pace of the previous month, but it just made it worse having nothing to do. Skye was glad to move on and have something else to think about for a change.

She allowed herself a brief moment of satisfaction at her composure today throughout an op that had been going horribly wrong. If she'd freaked out, or left the computer to go fight alongside her team like her brain was screaming at her to do, they wouldn't have gotten what they came for. But May had trained her too well for that. She had focused on her objective, and the mission, though rough, had succeeded.

Skye let out a relieved sigh. "Well, that went better than it could have."

Hunter winced, checking his puffy lip for bleeding. "We definitely could've used another man in there."

His offhand observation stabbed at Skye's heart. It was true. The mission would have gone much more smoothly if they'd had another field agent. Unfortunately, he was now a pile of rubble on the floor, ten stories below San Juan.

Skye didn't say anything else the rest of the way home.

* * * * * * *

The kitchen and lounge were empty when Skye came in and flopped onto the couch, warily eyeing the coffee stain on the floor that hadn't come out, no matter how hard she'd scrubbed. She was a little nervous that Koenig would freak out about the damage to "his" base, but thankfully, he hadn't seemed to notice yet.

Skye felt a sudden pang of loneliness. Typically, after a mission, she and Trip would have been in the lounge joking around, probably with Fitz and Mack, maybe Simmons. But now it was just her. Coulson and May had retreated to his office to debrief; Simmons, Fitz, and Mack were working on something all-consuming over in the lab. And the last time she'd seen Bobbi and Hunter, they had been arguing heatedly in the hangar, Bobbi standing on one leg but still managing to gesture wildly without losing her balance.

Skye rather unsuccessfully resisted the urge to feel like an eighth wheel. Their team, unofficially reorganized by the loss of Trip, now consisted of Mom and Dad, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and the Lab Trio. And Skye. It was hard not to feel a little out of place.

The sound of footsteps coming down the hall interrupted her thoughts, and Hunter strode in. He had apparently cleaned up since she'd seen him last, but he was still sporting a nasty black eye and a swollen lip. He grabbed a beer out of the fridge, twisted off the cap while slamming the fridge shut with his foot, and took a long pull before clanking the bottle down on the counter. Then he noticed Skye.

"Trouble in paradise?" she asked dryly. She might not normally have said anything; though she and Hunter had enjoyed some comfortably snarky banter back when he'd first joined the team, they hadn't talked much since Bobbi had returned from Hydra and he'd become increasingly preoccupied by her presence. But Skye felt a little desperate not to be alone with her own thoughts right now.

"You could say that." Hunter took another long swig.

"You two were really going at it."

"Comes with the territory," he replied, shrugging philosophically. "I took a punch today that was meant for her. She doesn't like it when I do things like that."

He looked at Skye for a moment, then reopened the fridge, taking out a second bottle. He walked over and handed it to her. "Here. You look like you could use one of these, too. It's cheap beer, but it'll still take the edge off."

"Thanks." It wasn't a bad idea, and Skye appreciated the thought. She accepted the bottle and twisted it open. He was right - it was cheap. But oh well. Maybe she'd have two.

Hunter settled down into the overstuffed chair opposite her. "Remind me to get us a case of the good stuff after our next successful mission," he said amiably.

Skye raised an eyebrow. "We got what we needed. What would you classify as a successful mission?"

Hunter grimaced, indicating his face. "I'd prefer not to look like this afterward."

Skye grinned in spite of herself, then sobered, remembering his comment on the plane. Today could have gone very differently, and she didn't know how their team would keep going if they had lost another... The thought was too painful to finish. "I'm glad you guys were okay. I wanted to come help, but..."

Hunter shook his head. "No. You did exactly what you ought to've done." He studied her for a moment, then asked breezily, "So, if you're not brooding over the regrettable injuries sustained by Bobbi and myself, what is it that's weighing on you?"

His attempt at levity fell flat as Skye blinked, at a loss. Honestly...what _wasn't_ weighing on her?

Hunter, chastened by her reaction, made an apologetic face. "Guess that's a stupid question."

She nodded. "Understatement," she mumbled, suddenly captivated by the label on her beer bottle.

When he spoke again, Hunter's voice was quiet, his tone serious. "I'm sorry. Look, we all know you've been through hell these last few months. What with your father, and Ward, and being taken hostage - that's a lot to go through without following it by losing someone you care about." He took a deep breath. "I know how it feels to lose people, and that by itself is bad enough." Skye looked up to meet his eyes, and was surprised by the honest sympathy in them. "You've done a fantastic job being strong, and no one would blame you if you broke down."

Skye swallowed hard. The sympathy and affirmation, coming as it was from a wholly unexpected source, was fraying the fragile threads of her composure. She felt tears welling up in her eyes.

This was not where she wanted to do this, and this was not the company she wanted when she did it. But the dam was breaking, and her best efforts to hold everything in were failing. Rapidly.

Hunter, taken aback by Skye's watery response, hesitated before coming to sit beside her, awkwardly placing an empathetic hand on her shoulder.

That did it. Skye doubled over, burying her face in her hands as the tears began to flow, abundant and hot. Grief - guilt - confusion - the horror of learning what had happened to her mother - the conflicted loyalty she felt to her monstrous father - and more that she couldn't articulate - it felt like such a relief to let it all come sobbing out of her.

But just as it flashed through her mind, her moment of relief was cut short by a powerful rocking of the earth. The walls rattled as kitchen cabinets flew open, dishes crashing onto the floor. Skye was vaguely aware of Hunter pulling her close to shield her from any debris.

The quake passed after only about half a minute, which was a relief; but the base alarms had been activated, and in a moment Coulson's voice came over the loudspeaker.

"All personnel, please evacuate to the east parking lot until we have conducted a thorough damage assessment."

Skye sat up shakily, looking around. Thankfully, the room was still intact, but there were broken plates and glasses all over the floor in the kitchen.

They sure had been cleaning up a lot of broken glass and ceramic in the last week, she observed vaguely.

Hunter's voice snapped her out of her daze. "Are you hurt?"

Skye turned to see him now standing beside her. She shook her head weakly. "No, I'm fine."

"Come on, then." He extended a hand to help her to her feet. "Let's get out of here before the ceiling comes down."


	4. Flight

Thankfully, the old SSR base had been built to withstand heavy-duty abuse. The DWARFs' thorough scan revealed no signs of serious structural damage, and after an hour and a half in the chilly evening air, Skye was very happy to go back inside.

The team convened in the briefing room at Coulson's request.

"Did everyone remember to duck and cover?" he wisecracked before switching into business mode. "It looks like we are going to have to get an earthquake evacuation plan on paper." He lifted an eyebrow toward May, who shot him a dirty look.

"You know how much I miss red tape," she muttered.

With a mischievous smirk, Coulson replied, "Consider it payback for all the forms you've made me fill out over the years."

May rolled her eyes, a tiny smile playing on her lips.

"Sir?" Bobbi interrupted. She was standing a little apart from the group, Hunter beside her, watching news coverage of the earthquake on her laptop.

"Yes, Agent Morse?"

"I think you need to see this." She tapped the space bar, then set the laptop down on the table, spinning it around so that everyone could see the map on the screen. "They've pinpointed the epicenter of this quake, and it's right over our location. But that's not all..." She spun the laptop back around and began clicking. "I was checking on the other two quakes as well -" she turned the screen back toward them - "and the epicenter of every one has been directly beneath our base. The media are talking about how it's unprecedented to have three quakes in a row with the same point of origin."

Coulson blinked, studying the graphics, then turned toward May. "Any chance it's a coincidence?"

May shook her head, her lips tight. "It's much too coincidental."

"Fitz, Simmons, Bobbi - does Hydra have any tech that could cause - or mimic - an earthquake?"

Fitz and Simmons looked blank, while Bobbi scrunched her forehead thoughtfully.

Simmons' response was hesitant. "I suppose that with a plasma drill they could induce a vibration...but the drill would be fairly conspicuous. We'd have noticed it."

"There's gravitonium," Fitz offered. "It caused quite a bit of shaking on Malta. But I haven't noticed any strange gravity-related effects, and I don't think they could use it without us seeing those."

Coulson swore under his breath. "I forgot they have access to that now." He thought for a minute. "Nothing else? Nothing underground?"

Simmons shrugged helplessly, and Bobbi shook her head. "Nothing that we know of," Bobbi specified.

"Understood." Coulson looked at May again. "Anyone on the Index with this kind of power?"

"Seismic? No."

Coulson stared thoughtfully at the epicenter map on Bobbi's laptop, tapping his fingers on the table.

"What do you think?" May prompted him quietly.

Coulson sighed, clearly not enthusiastic about his options. "We're facing a localized threat of unknown nature and origin," he concluded reluctantly. "I think we have to move."

May nodded.

"And just as it was starting to feel like home," Hunter quipped, folding his arms across his body.

Coulson turned to Billy Koenig. "What's our best option?"

"I sent Sam over to the Party House after Puerto Rico," Koenig replied briskly. "It could be ready within the hour."

Skye spoke up, incredulous. "The Party House?"

"It's another old SSR base," Koenig clarified. He rolled his eyes. "I let Sam name it."

Hunter was suddenly consumed by a violent fit of coughing. Bobbi elbowed him.

Coulson hesitated for a moment, then spoke in a decisive tone. "All right. Everyone, go pack your things. Koenig, sound the evac, then call Sam and tell him to expect us."

"Yes, sir."

"Skye, I'm gonna need you to back up the system and wipe it before we leave." She nodded. "Everyone else, make sure all our tech and files come along. I don't want us leaving anything for Hydra to find." He turned to make eye contact with each agent. "Okay. Wheels up in thirty. Let's go."

Everyone scattered.

* * * * * * *

Skye started the system backup before heading to her quarters to pack her things. It took her all of two minutes to sweep her meager possessions into a black SHIELD duffel bag. She crammed her pillow in there, too. It had taken her two weeks of snooping and bartering to find a decent one, and she wasn't taking chances on the pillows at the Party House being any better.

She gave her room a final once-over. Despite Hunter's sarcasm, it _had_ come to feel like home over the last few months. It was nice, after living in a van, then a plane, to have a home without an engine.

Of course, as a SHIELD agent, she supposed "home" was a relative term anyway. She switched off the light and shut the door behind her.

Out in the hallway, everything was controlled chaos, people all but running to get things loaded onto the Bus and the quinjet before takeoff. Skye wondered how it all would fit. She was pretty sure the emergency evacuation plan for a SHIELD base typically called for more than two planes. Even running a skeleton crew as they were, they might all end up packed together like sardines.

Hunter walked by, carrying a black duffel of his own. "Hey," Skye called to him. "Can you take mine down there too? I have to go back to the lab and finish wiping the system."

"Sure," he replied, taking her bag. He paused, looking at her piercingly. "You okay?"

Skye knew he was referring to the emotional breakdown the quake had interrupted. "Yeah, I'm fine," she replied shortly, flashing him a strained smile before turning to head back to the lab. She appreciated his concern, but felt uncomfortable at the thought of being an object of pity.

* * * * * * *

Once they were in the air, Skye let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. There was something seriously unsettling about an unknown enemy who could attack using earthquakes, and it was a relief to be getting out of the danger zone.

Skye looked around at the agents occupying the other seats in the cargo hold of the Bus. Surprisingly, many of the faces were unfamiliar. They must have been working down in the bowels of the Playground somewhere.

"Skye!" The sound of Coulson calling from the top of the spiral stair interrupted her thoughts. "I need your eyes on something up here."

She unbuckled and wove her way between Lola, the SUV, and forty thousand boxes of lab tech on her way to the stairs. Before she left, Skye found the most responsible-looking agent present and reminded him, "Make sure nobody touches Lola."

He blinked and nodded.

The upper deck of the Bus was a literal maze of file crates and more boxes of tech. Skye picked her way amongst them to join Coulson and Koenig in the command center as Coulson was pulling up a few images on the screen.

"Just before the earthquake hit," he began matter-of-factly, "I received a strange report from Agent Ferreira, head of SHIELD operations in São Luis, Brazil.

"He and his team intercepted some chatter a few days ago about a deal going down on a Chitauri artifact. When the field team arrived to scout the location, they were ambushed and knocked unconscious. They woke up an hour later, no serious injuries, but with needle marks in their veins."

Skye's eyes widened. "Were they injected with something?"

Coulson's face was impassive. "We don't know. Ferreira has them quarantined, in case they begin to exhibit negative effects. As soon as we land, I'm going to have Simmons analyzing blood samples." His brow furrowed, betraying deep concern. "We can't afford to lose any more agents."

Skye nodded, swallowing the lump in her throat.

Coulson fixed his eyes on her. "I want you to go over the intel they found, see what you can find out about it. Figure out where it came from. See if anybody's talking about this, anything that might give us more information. And while you're at it, keep an eye out for anything new about the earthquakes." His lips set firmly. "If SHIELD is under attack, we need to know what we're up against."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obsessive canon compliancy author's note: The map of SHIELD locations that Skye and Coulson briefly consider at the beginning of "A Fractured House" has a dot that's almost certainly over São Luis, Brazil. What's with the random ambush there? We'll find out...


	5. The Party House

Skye was so absorbed in her research that she jumped when Coulson touched her shoulder. "We'll be landing in a few minutes," he informed her before heading off toward the cargo hold.

She buckled in and peered out the window to see a world illuminated only by pale moonlight. Foothills stretched out to the horizon, blanketed by trees. Apparently the Party House, unlike the Playground, was off the beaten path.

The moonlight outside the windows dimmed as the plane entered the hangar, and in a moment Skye felt the _shudder-thump_ of the wheels touching down. She shut her laptop, unbuckled, and headed for the stairs.

The next twenty minutes were a chaos of unloading, getting everything off the planes into the Party House, which, she discovered, was essentially a rough hillside bunker.

"Listen up!" Coulson called, as the last of the boxes were offloaded. The busy hangar quieted. "This base is smaller than the Playground, and housing arrangements are two to a room. Find a roommate and get settled. I need Agent Simmons and her team in the lab immediately. Fitz, Simmons, Mack, both Koenigs, and field agents, I'll see you in the briefing room in one hour. The rest of you have the night off. Get some sleep."

Simmons caught Skye's eye from across the hangar and made her way over as the noise level began to climb back to a dull roar. "Want to be roomies?" she asked hopefully.

"Definitely." Skye felt the lately-unfamiliar sensation of a genuine smile stretching across her face. Then she grimaced jokingly and added a caveat: "I'm not always the neatest person in the world, but I don't have that much to make a mess with."

"It's okay." Simmons rolled her eyes self-consciously, with an answering smile. "I compulsively straighten up when under stress, so we'll be a perfect team."

Skye's momentarily lifted spirits fell again at the reminder of the stressful situation in which they found themselves, between the earthquakes and the mysterious attack in São Luis. The two women's eyes met for a moment in silent mutual understanding.

Simmons blinked. "I have to get to the lab right away to analyze the data. Can I send my bag with you? I don't care what room you choose as long as it's well-lit." She made an apologetic face, proffering her duffel.

"Sure." Skye accepted the bag. "I'll come find you and tell you where we live."

Simmons flashed a quick, grateful smile and turned to go.

The agents' quarters were all in the same section of corridors, the hallways as barren and dimly lit as the Playground's. _SHIELD could really benefit from recruiting a few interior decorators,_ Skye observed idly. At least it wasn't freezing.

She scouted a couple of rooms, testing the beds, before settling on a room halfway down the first hallway with good mattresses and adequate lighting. She placed Simmons' duffel on one of the beds and plopped onto the other, pulling the pillow from the Playground out of her bag. She buried her face in it, breathing in the familiar, strangely comforting scent.

The confused emotions swirling at the back of her mind threatened momentarily to come to the fore, but with a little effort she kept the lid on. There would have to be time to deal with those later.

She unpacked her things quickly, grabbed her laptop, made a mental note of the room number, and dashed off to find the lab.

* * * * * * *

The team gathered for a briefing an hour later. Coulson quickly filled everyone in on the situation in São Luis before asking Simmons for her report.

"I've found nothing in the data, sir," Simmons explained uneasily. "No strange substances, no abnormalities. Agent Silva's iron is a little high, but nothing to be concerned about. That means..." She took a deep breath. "If we're dealing with something that has been injected, it's something we don't know to look for. It's entirely possible that alien technology or biology wouldn't come up on the standard tests that Agent Ferreira's team is running. Is there any chance I could get my hands on some good quality blood samples, so we can run additional tests here?"

Coulson nodded briskly. "Bobbi, are you up for taking the quinjet?"

"Sure." Bobbi looked tired, but willing. Hunter flashed a concerned look in her direction.

"No need, sir," Fitz interrupted. "Mack and I have been working on miniaturizing the cloaking technology for my hypersonic drones, and we have three ready to go. They have the range, and they'd be large enough to transport samples."

"Can they keep them at an appropriate temperature?" Simmons looked skeptical.

Fitz gave a curt nod. "I can make the necessary modifications in an hour or so. They'll still be faster than the quinjet, and burn much less fuel."

"All right." Simmons looked troubled by, but resigned to, the delay. "I'll have to have a look before you deploy them."

Coulson turned to Skye. "Anything?"

"Well, as far as the earthquakes go..." Skye tapped a few keys, pulling up what she'd found. "The latest one came in at a magnitude 6.1. Preliminary geological analyses indicate that the source was in the wrong place and too close to the surface for this kind of quake. I don't think we're dealing with natural causes here."

"Just more confirmation," Coulson observed tersely. "And the intel from São Luis?"

"Nothing yet." Skye let out a frustrated sigh. "Whoever these people are, they hid their tracks well. It's going to take some time to chase them down."

Coulson nodded, studying her carefully. "Keep working on it. I have confidence in you."

Skye smiled weakly.

"Anyone have anything to add?" Coulson asked. There was no response. "All right, then we're in a holding pattern until we have more information. Go get some sleep. We've had a busy day, and tomorrow could be worse. Fitz and Simmons, get those drones in the air. Billy Koenig can give you the coordinates for Agent Ferreira's location."

Skye rubbed her temples, turning her attention back to her laptop as the room cleared out. The adrenaline rush that had sustained her for the majority of the day was beginning to wear off, and for the first time, she started to notice the tingling of exhaustion in her arms and legs.

"Skye." She realized Coulson was standing beside her. "You've been awake for almost 24 hours. You had a strenuous field mission today before we had to relocate. And we might need you fresh tomorrow. I want you to get some rest and look at this again in the morning."

Skye opened her mouth to protest, but the knowing look in his eyes stopped her. She sighed. She hated to need a break, but she couldn't deny that her hands were getting shaky and her thoughts fuzzier by the second. And this was not an easy trace. A few hours of sleep could make a big difference.

"Okay," she conceded, with a small smile. "Thanks for looking out for me, AC."

Coulson nodded, gazing at her with both approval and concern. "I appreciate your dedication, but make sure you take care of yourself. We need you around here."

* * * * * * *

This time, Coulson was in the underground chamber, too, his face still bloodied and his breath rasping from the beating her father had given him. Skye watched with horror, rooted to the floor and paralyzed, as both he and Agent Triplett cried out in pain before solidifying into stone. Then everything started to shake, and a huge chunk of rock fell from high above them, smashing Coulson into pieces. Skye opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out.

Just then, the entrance to the chamber slowly rumbled open, and Simmons rushed in. "Skye! Skye!" she shouted desperately, just before the great slab that had sealed the chamber shifted and rocked. Simmons' brown eyes went wide with terror as it crashed down on top of her.

* * * * * * *

Skye awoke, screaming, to Simmons shaking her shoulder. "Skye! Skye!" the other agent repeated. "Wake up!" Her eyes were wild, as in the dream, and she gestured about the room. Skye abruptly realized that, as with her other nightmares, the base itself was moving. This earthquake wasn't as strong as the last one, but it was happening. And it shouldn't be.

Skye jumped to her feet and flung their door open, looking up and down the corridor. She locked eyes with Agent May, who was leaning out the door of her room a little way up the hall.

"Briefing room," May commanded, and Skye grabbed Simmons by the hand to drag her in that direction.

Along the way, they passed Hunter and Mack piling out of their room, and Fitz emerging, bleary-eyed, from the one next door. "Briefing room," Skye informed them.

* * * * * * *

"Is there any way they could have found us?" May demanded, her eyes flashing.

Sam Koenig, who seemed to be the primary target of her wrath, shook his head emphatically. "This base is top-secret, completely off the books, and you've only been here for three hours. That's hardly enough time to have found the base _and_ moved a weapon into place."

"Could we have been tracked here?" Hunter suggested.

"No," May replied shortly. "We swept everything for bugs before we left, including every inch of the planes. And the cloaking technology is impossible to track."

"Is it?" Hunter clarified, looking over at Fitz and Mack.

Fitz looked suddenly uncomfortable. "Err, yes. That is, it should be. Theoretically, the planes could some day be tracked, but the technology for, uh, tracking them is still...five or six years down the road. Even with teams of scientists working on it, I don't see how they could possibly have done it so soon."

Simmons shook her head in agreement. "It's extremely unlikely." Fitz glanced over at her gratefully. "And even if they had, could they have moved a weapon here this quickly? And without us noticing? It's not as if there's anywhere to hide out there."

Coulson, who had been studying his folded hands in deep thought, looked up at the biochemist. "What are you suggesting?"

She took a deep breath. "I'm wondering if something we've brought with us is causing the earthquakes. We have a lot of Hydra tech still in boxes, and some of it we don't yet fully understand." She made a face, knowing her next suggestion would mean a great deal of work for everyone. "I propose we unpack every bit of tech, ours and Hydra's, and scan all of it for unusual vibrations or other emissions."

Fitz rolled his eyes in mock despair, but didn't disagree.

"Okay," Coulson agreed. "What do you need?"

Simmons scrunched up her forehead. "A large workspace, like perhaps the hangar. The DWARFs, all our handheld scanners..."

"...and a lot of manpower," Fitz finished.

Coulson looked around at everyone. "You heard them. Get everybody up. To the hangar. We need to get to the bottom of this before the place comes down around us."

Coulson caught Skye gently by the arm on her way out the door. "I need you to stay focused on São Luis. Get a few hours of sleep and get back to it."

"Yes, sir," she replied, noticing that the words came out shaky.

Coulson noticed, too, and looked at her closely. "You okay?"

Skye took a deep breath and pulled it together. "Just nightmares. I'll be fine," she answered, more steadily.

His expression of concern didn't change, and his voice was gentle. "Ask Simmons for something to help you sleep, if you need it."

Skye nodded, resigned. "Okay."


	6. An Unexpected Shock

Whatever Simmons had given her, it was a miracle. Skye got six solid hours of sleep and emerged from a shower feeling like a new woman, ready to take on the challenge of chasing bad guys through cyberspace.

At first she tried working in the lab, but the noise and chaos of twenty people running in and out from the hangar with boxes of tech was already too much, before the samples arrived from São Luis and the lab became ground zero for every blood analysis known to man - along with a few tests Skye was pretty sure Simmons was making up on the fly. After she accidentally bumped into the centrifuge next to her laptop, earning a terrifying glare from the normally mild biochemist, Skye decided to set up shop elsewhere. She settled into the tiny lounge between the lab and the dining room, noting the absence of a big-screen TV. Maybe Sam Koenig had a projector for playing Call of Duty with his brother (brother _s_?) - she doubted he would settle for anything less.

The hours passed. Other agents periodically wandered through on a break, and Skye gathered from their reports that none of the work, whether in the hangar or in the lab, was yielding any useful information.

Neither were Skye's efforts. Late in the afternoon, she found herself letting out a frustrated sigh as her latest idea came up empty. Honestly, the level of electronic sophistication achieved by whoever was behind this intel was more advanced than anything she'd ever seen. It was almost like there was something supernatural about it.

Skye tried to brush away the heavy sense of foreboding that had crept up on her over the last few hours. Throughout the day, she'd had the steadily growing and completely irrational hunch that, somehow, her father was involved with the ambush in Brazil. It didn't make any sense. After all, it wasn't his style - not at all. Everyone was still alive, no sign of scalpels anywhere. And what would possibly be his motive? Still, she couldn't shake the idea that the whole thing had something to do with her. After all, São Luis was one of the closer SHIELD bases to San Juan.

It was probably just paranoia.

"Fifteen hours of glorified inventory, and not a drop of beer anywhere on base when I finally get a break." Hunter appeared from the direction of the dining room, a glass of water in hand. He leaned against the doorframe. "How'd you manage to escape?"

Skye pointed at her laptop and shot him a withering, incredulous look, a little snippy at having had her thoughts interrupted. "Want to trade places?"

Hunter screwed up his face for a moment in mock consideration before shaking his head. "Nope." He wandered over, pulling an ICER out of his belt and setting it on the coffee table before folding himself into one of the chairs and putting his feet up on the table as well.

Skye arched a questioning eyebrow at the sidearm. "Coulson's decided that agents should be armed, in case everything goes to hell," Hunter explained. "Guess you missed the memo, hiding out in here."

"Yep."

Hunter took a sip of water, then added, "What are you working on?"

Skye sighed. "Still trying to track down the origin of the intel that the São Luis team was following up on when they were ambushed."

Hunter nodded. Skye thought he looked mildly impressed, but it could have been her imagination. "How exactly does one go about doing that?" he asked.

She made a face. "It's...kind of complicated to explain. And I'm not really sure I could explain it well anyway. It's half knowledge and half intuition, you know?"

Hunter nodded again, his blank expression betraying that he had no idea what she was talking about. "Found anything yet?"

"Nothing. These guys are ghosts. I mean, beyond ghosts. I'm pretty good at tracking down ghosts. But I've never seen anything like how these people have hidden their trail. They've routed through at least two dozen servers, and I have a feeling I'm just scratching the surface."

Silence fell between them. Skye, uncomfortable after a minute and reaching for a topic of conversation, thought of something strange she'd noticed last night.

"How come you and Bobbi aren't sharing a room?" she asked curiously. Bobbi and Hunter hadn't made an announcement or anything, but it was obvious from how they'd been acting around each other that something had rekindled their old flame.

Hunter had the grace to look a little uncomfortable. "Bobbi, uh, said she wasn't quite ready for that yet. Needs us to work back up to that point." He didn't sound entirely satisfied with the explanation. Skye caught the flicker of - what was that? consternation? frustration? - that crossed his face, but she didn't ask. It really wasn't her business.

"How did you guys end up back together, anyway?" she pried, turning her attention back to the computer screen. That really wasn't her business, either, but she was curious.

Hunter rubbed the back of his neck, a tiny smile playing on his lips. "It was...rather sudden, actually."

Skye smirked. "So, is she still a demonic hell-beast?" she asked, with a wry quirk of one eyebrow. Hunter opened his mouth to reply, then hesitated, grimacing. "Don't answer that."

"Right then." He stared off into space, tapping his fingers against his glass.

Skye thought for a moment she was having a breakthrough with the trace, but then she bumped up against another dead end. "Damn it," she muttered.

They sat in silence a few minutes more, and then Hunter looked over. "Mack said that Raina was a sight to behold after San Juan."

"Or a sight to get the hell away from," Skye replied, still distracted by her work. "She was hideous."

Hunter let out a chuckle. "Ironic, that. I'll bet she won't be snaring any more suckers with her looks. Wonder how she'll get along?"

Skye quirked an eyebrow disinterestedly. "No idea." She tapped an agitated finger on the table. "I kind of hope she doesn't." A thought bubbled up from the raw, painful place deep inside her. _If it weren't for Raina, Trip would still be alive._

Hunter studied Skye for a moment. "Lucky thing you escaped her fate," he observed evenly.

"Yeah," she agreed, letting out a sigh.

"Why do you think it worked on her and not on you?" He seemed cautious, as if knowing this had the potential to be a painful topic.

Skye paused from her typing and looked over at him. "I don't know," she shrugged. "Coulson and Simmons and I talked about it after we got back. I have a theory, but no way to know if it's right."

Hunter nodded, and Skye, seeing he was really listening, continued. "Cal - my father," she clarified uncomfortably, "said that my mother was special. He never said that he was. So I think that I'm only half...special, or whatever it is. Whatever my mother was and Raina is." She made a face. It galled her to have to group Raina and her mother into the same category, not to mention Raina and herself. "It must not have been enough for me to be changed. Just enough to keep me alive." _Unlike Triplett._ Skye bit her lip and turned back to the laptop screen, tears suddenly shimmering in her eyes.

Hunter knew what she was thinking about. Something had been weighing on him since their last conversation, and he decided that now, if not the right time to say it, was at least the time he was going to say it.

"You know," he began, taking his feet off the table and setting his glass there instead, "I cried myself to sleep every night for a week after we lost Hartley and Idaho." He leaned forward on his knees, studying Skye's face. He looked reassured by what he saw there, which, Skye felt pretty sure, was a jumble of discomfort, incredulity, and relief.

He went on. "Had a lot of survivor's guilt, too. It didn't seem right that I was the only one to make it out. Izzy in particular had more to live for."

Skye swallowed hard. "Her family?" she asked quietly.

He nodded.

"You don't have any?"

Hunter shrugged. "A mum and a married sister in London. But I'm not good at family the way Hartley was. I never get back to see them, and I'm terrible at keeping in touch. If I died, it really wouldn't change things for them all that much."

Skye regarded him skeptically, with a touch of compassion. "I doubt that."

He shook his head. "Not the way I know it affected Izzy's family," he replied firmly, regretfully.

Skye's eyes began to feel moist again, and she took a couple of deep breaths to calm and clear her mind. In retrospect, she wouldn't be sure what made her open up - maybe it was Hunter's unexpected vulnerability, or the fact that he understood some of what she was going through; maybe it was just because she couldn't hold it in any longer - but she found herself painfully voicing the thoughts that had swirled through her head a hundred times since Puerto Rico. "I've thought...so many times...that it would have been better if I had died down there, instead of him. He has - he had a really tight family, and a mother who adored him. All I have" - and her voice sharpened with bitterness - "is an insane estranged father who goes around attacking people for taking his revenge from him." A vision of Coulson's bloodied face hovered at the edges of her memory, bringing with it the horror of last night's dream. She pushed it away, blinking back the stubborn tears that refused to succumb to her best efforts at self-control.

"That's not all you have," Hunter corrected gently. "What about your team? Coulson? May? The others?"

"They would probably be better off without me." She didn't articulate the icy, terrifying suspicion that her father was somehow behind the incident in São Luis, that her very presence in SHIELD might be putting people in danger.

"I sincerely doubt Coulson would be better off without you," Hunter observed quietly. He sighed. "You can't bring someone back by thinking that way," he added, staring at his folded hands. "Believe me, I've tried it. You'll just dishonor Trip's memory by refusing to allow him to be a hero."

Skye's breath caught in her throat. Trip _had_ been a hero; he'd died trying to save her - but the most tragic part was that she hadn't even needed saving. His death had been in vain, a fruitless sacrifice. "That's the worst part," she forced out, struggling violently to control herself. "If his death had accomplished _anything_ , it might be easier to understand. But it did nothing." Her voice was getting louder, and she felt powerless to control it as her anger at herself, at everything, began to overflow. Hunter nodded, letting her know it was all right for her to continue, to let it out. So she did. "It was for nothing. Trip deserved for his death to mean something, not for it to be a total waste." She hardly noticed the tears beginning to stream down her face. "It isn't _right_!"

On her last word, a shock wave rippled through the room, knocking Hunter back a few inches. The furniture rattled. Hunter's glass rocked, and he quickly moved to catch it just as it began to topple over.

Skye froze, her eyes wide as her mind scrambled to process what had just happened. She saw Hunter pause and stare at the table for a moment, his hand still outstretched from righting the glass.

"Bloody hell," he murmured, and he turned to look at her, awe and realization sweeping across his face. There was a touch of fear there, too. "The earthquakes?"

It took Skye, numb with shock, some time to force out a response. "I have no idea," she whispered.

Hunter stood up and motioned toward the door. "Come on," he said firmly, his voice a little shaky. "Let's go have a talk with Coulson."


	7. Confirmation

The hallways were a blur as Skye stumbled down them. After she walked right past the turn to Coulson's office, she was aware of Hunter placing a hand on her back to help steer her in the right direction. Her multitude of spinning thoughts had the cumulative effect of rendering her absolutely numb. Only one fragment stuck out clearly.

_The Obelisk...?_

Coulson looked up as they entered, his brows lifting quickly as he caught sight of their faces. "What is it?" he asked, alarmed.

Hunter glanced over at Skye, meaning to give her the opportunity to speak first, but the stricken look on her face and the way she was staring unseeingly at a corner of Coulson's desk made it evident that he would have to be the one to tell the Director. He turned hesitatingly back to Coulson. "I think we've found the source of the earthquakes."

Coulson blinked, looking back and forth between the two of them. "Yes?"

Hunter held his breath. "Skye."

Coulson's eyes widened, his jaw slackening slightly. His gaze flew to Skye, who lifted uncertain, fearful eyes to meet his.

"What makes you think so?"

Hunter again gave Skye the opportunity to answer, but when she didn't speak, he explained. "When the earthquake happened yesterday, we were talking about what happened in San Juan. Skye started to become emotional, and that's when the shaking started. Today..." - he took a deep breath - "we were talking about it again, and when she got angry, some kind of shock wave pulsed through the room. It was strong enough to push me back a few inches."

Coulson searched Skye's eyes, confusion and concern warring on his face. The struggle cleared as a revelation seemed to strike him. "Nightmares last night?" he asked softly.

She nodded just perceptibly, then found her voice - little more than a whisper. "And every other time."

Coulson's lips tightened. He nodded, maintaining his composure despite being visibly shaken. He pressed a button on his phone. "Sam, I need you to pull Simmons out of the lab and send her over to my office. Tell her it's urgent."

* * * * * * *

"Right then," Simmons said briskly, pressing the last of the sensors to Skye's skin. "These will pick up and quantify any unusual vibrations at skin level." She glanced at Skye apologetically, and the thinly veiled anxiety in her brown eyes belied her professional demeanor. "Give Fitz a moment to calibrate the DWARFs, and then we'll be ready to start."

Skye nodded.

Simmons smiled tightly and went to help Fitz with the quadcopters.

Skye took a deep breath, trying not to notice that Coulson and Hunter were both staring at her as if she were gravely ill. Their concern was appreciated, but their scrutiny was incredibly uncomfortable. At least Fitz and Simmons were distracted, or she'd have been the focus of every pair of eyes in the tiny lab. She would be anyway, in just a moment.

She closed her eyes to shut them out and focused on her swirling thoughts, willing them into coherence. Slowly, the shattered fragments began to fit together like puzzle pieces.

Maybe her exposure to the Obelisk had changed something. She had been expecting physical change, like what Raina had gone through. But she really didn't know _what_ to expect, anyway, or what that thing was supposed to do. Everything she knew had come from the delusional rants of her father and Raina, and she wasn't sure how trustworthy any of it was.

One thing was clear, though. If she was causing earthquakes, she didn't know how the hell she was doing it. And she was putting everyone in danger.

Things clicked into place. "Coulson?" she asked clearly, looking over at him. He lifted his eyebrows, acknowledging the first words she had spoken in more than half an hour.

"If this is me," she said steadily, trying to calm the trembling that was starting up in her arms and legs, "you need to sedate me and put me in the Cage."

Coulson looked torn. "Skye, I don't think -"

She cut him off, desperate for him to hear her. "It's made of a vibranium alloy. If I'm putting off seismic waves or whatever, it should be able to contain them. Right?" She searched his eyes for confirmation, but found nothing.

Instead, Coulson pressed his lips together firmly. "Skye, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

She locked eyes with him defiantly, the stubbornness in her gaze mingled with terror. He didn't back down.

"We will cross that bridge when we come to it," he repeated adamantly.

A fearful exhale escaped Skye's lips. She nodded warily. "Fine."

The DWARFs lifted off, taking up posts around the room at various heights as Simmons bustled back over to Skye. "We're ready," she said, with a forced smile and a nod that was barely reassuring. "The DWARFs will be able to measure and triangulate the point of origin of any vibrations or shock waves. We have everything battened down in here, so we should be ready to begin."

Skye nodded wordlessly.

Simmons sat down next to the monitor that was reading the results from the skin sensors. "Now, what has seemed to trigger the...phenomena?"

"Thinking about Trip," Skye replied quietly. "About everything that happened in Puerto Rico."

Simmons' eyes lit up with recognition. Skye assumed she was remembering their conversation in the middle of the night, after the second earthquake.

"So, strong emotions," Simmons summarized. Skye nodded. "All right, then...operating on the assumption that the strength of the emotions has an effect on the strength of the phenomenon, perhaps we should have you think of something that is only slightly upsetting?"

Skye let out a short, bitter laugh. Could _anything_ recently be considered only _slightly_ upsetting?

But Simmons was serious.

Okay. No. She would have to go back further. Skye closed her eyes and sifted through her memories, looking for something only "slightly upsetting." She settled on the maddening recollection of a potential foster brother who had teased her unmercifully. That had been a home she hadn't regretted leaving.

She allowed the hurt and irritation she'd always felt in the boy's presence to well up inside her, expecting to hear the rattle of glass beakers beginning to clink together. But there was silence.

Skye glanced questioningly up at Simmons, who shook her head. Simmons glanced over at Fitz, who shook his. "Nothing," he confirmed.

Simmons looked back at Skye sympathetically. "Maybe try something else?"

Right. Skye took a deep breath, closing her eyes and casting about for something more recent, sharper. She tried not to think about the four expectant pairs of eyes that were fixed on her, waiting for her to access a memory that was painful enough.

_No pressure._

Okay. Something that was painful, but not unbearably so.

Almost unbidden, an image flashed into her mind's eye of Miles, his stupid laughing face as he showed her some hacking trick. Emotions came with the image - the pleasure at his interest in her, the confidence instilled by his belief in her, the satisfaction of shared ideals and purpose.

The crushing disappointment and betrayal when she realized that he was all a lie.

Skye heard a faint humming and opened her eyes. Simmons was lifting her eyebrows at the sound, but shook her head. "Nothing here," she reported, watching the screen.

Fitz broke in. "Hey - hey. We're getting something." He studied the readout from the DWARFs, scrunching his eyebrows close together, then smiled and flashed a thumbs-up. "We're definitely picking up vibrations." He touched a button. "Triangulating source now."

Simmons turned to Skye, smiling, her apprehension forgotten in the thrill of discovery. "Keep it up!" she encouraged.

Skye flashed an ironic smile and closed her eyes again, trying to hold that image and those emotions in her mind without letting her thoughts go anywhere else.

What seemed like an eternity later, she heard Fitz's enthusiastic exclamation. "Got it!" She opened her eyes. "Yep." Fitz was nodding vehemently. "It's definitely coming from Skye."

The room fell silent.

Simmons turned to Skye, the thrill fading as the ramifications of the discovery sank in. "Oh dear," she murmured.

Fitz's grin faded. Hunter was looking at Skye almost apologetically, and Coulson had stiffened, his eyes very wide.

Skye took a deep breath, purposefully blanking her mind. "Okay," she said, sounding much more composed than she felt. "Now sedate me and put me in the Cage."

Coulson hesitated. He seemed uncertain, and Skye couldn't imagine why. This was an open and shut decision; there couldn't possibly be any debate about it. But Coulson looked as if he were having a fierce debate with himself.

The thought struck Skye that maybe he felt as bewildered and fearful for her as she did.

That was incredibly meaningful. But this wasn't the right time for it.

"Skye," Coulson began quietly, his empathetic eyes meeting hers, "I don't know that we need to -"

"No, you _do_ ," she cut in, fending off the icy claws of panic that were beginning to dig into her heart. She struggled for composure. "Look, I get that you're worried about me. But you don't need to be worried about me; you need to be worried about everyone else in this base. We don't know what this is, and I don't know how I'm doing it..." - her words tumbled over one another - "...and I don't know how to control it, and _none_ of us know how bad this can get." She locked eyes with Coulson, silently pleading with him as her arms and legs began trembling again. "I'm compromising the safety of everyone here. _Your_ safety."

Coulson's eyes cleared. Resigned, he looked to Simmons, who grimaced uncertainly. "We don't really know what effect sedation would have," she explained, with an apologetic glance toward Skye. "It could have the opposite effect and trigger the vibrations."

Suddenly, Skye's head was spinning as the sheer weight of overwhelming uncertainty came crashing in on her. She was both more powerful and more utterly out of control than she had ever been in her life.

From the cabinets came the clinking of glass beakers bumping into one another.

_Oh no._

Coulson glanced around the room, then looked at her, his eyes suddenly registering panic as he caught sight of the panic in hers. "Skye?"

Her hands were trembling uncontrollably now, her breath coming in short gasps. She desperately tried to rein herself in, and was horrified to discover that she couldn't. Whether from overuse or simply overload, her self-control was failing her.

The rattling intensified as the floor began to shake.

_Oh. NO._

Hunter and Simmons stared at her, mouths agape, as Coulson and Fitz looked wildly around at the cabinets.

Skye looked back and forth from Hunter to Simmons, locking eyes with each of them. "You have to get out of here," she gritted out through chattering teeth. Hunter nodded crisply, grabbing Simmons by the arm and turning purposefully toward the door.

Into Skye's mind flashed, with nightmarish clarity, the images of Coulson and Simmons crushed by falling rocks in her dream last night. She cried out, burying her face in her hands.

Then everything began happening too quickly for anyone to react. The floor was suddenly rolling like ocean waves. Hunter stumbled, falling against the cabinets, as Fitz, Simmons, and Coulson struggled to stay on their feet. From out in the hangar came the sound of crashes, cries, and what sounded like at least one explosion.

Skye could only watch, powerless, as unconsciously she tore her world apart.

The cabinet latches failed, spilling glassware and metal instruments onto the countertops with a cacophony of crashes. The door out to the hangar swung open violently. From somewhere, a heavy metal piece of equipment came flying through the air toward Simmons, and Skye watched in horror as it connected with the scientist's head. Simmons crumpled to the floor. Skye saw a small pool of blood begin to collect beneath her temple.

_Oh, God._

A severe shake took Skye down to her knees, and she grasped at the cabinets for stability. Hunter was lying a few feet away now, shielding his head with his arms. Next to him on the floor lay his ICER, which must have been thrown free in the chaos.

_That's it._

"Hunter!" she yelled at the top of her lungs. But the noise was so deafening he couldn't hear her.

Skye staggered to her feet, clinging to the cabinet, and then flung herself toward him, reaching desperately for the ICER. She just barely felt its cool barrel graze her fingertips, and she squirmed closer until she could get a good grip on it. She released the safety, aimed it at her own thigh, shut her eyes, and squeezed the trigger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had a couple of terrific readers point out that, in the comics, Daisy is immune to her own powers. I did see that on the Marvel wiki, but, not being a comics reader myself, I'm not sure what that always looks like. For the purposes of this fic, I've made her immune to her own vibrations (hence Simmons not picking anything up at skin level), but not necessarily to their effects - for example, if the floor is bucking and rolling under her, she'll struggle to stand like anyone else, and she could be injured by flying or falling debris caused by her vibrations.


	8. Waking Up

Skye woke up on a cot in the Cage.

She sat up with a jerk, her head swimming and her body beginning to tremble uncontrollably as she remembered why she was there and what had been happening before she knocked herself out. The earthquake - the lab - the crashing, the explosion...

The plastic table and chair set up in the room were beginning to rattle already from the vibrations she was putting off. At least, with her in the Cage, everyone outside should be safe.

Everyone who was left.

_Oh, God. Simmons._

A soft knock on the door interrupted her frenzied thoughts. "Skye?" She heard Hunter's voice, muffled, courteous. "Are you all right?"

She sprang over to the door, trying to open it before she realized it was locked. "Hunter!" she cried desperately. "Is everyone okay? Is Simmons - is Simmons okay?"

"She's going to be fine," his voice came back at her through the door, reassuring. "Nothing a little field medicine and rest can't fix. She took a good hit to the head, and she was out for a little while, but the bleeding made it look worse than it really was. She's taking it easy for now, and she should be back on her feet in a few days."

Skye heaved a shuddering sigh and slumped against the door, her body tingling with relief. "Thank God," she murmured. She shut her eyes and took a deep breath before another thought sent a chill shivering up her spine. "Was anyone else injured?"

Hunter seemed to hesitate. "Cuts and bruises. A few people out in the hangar had broken bones, with all the equipment flying around," he admitted. "One burn that was pretty nasty but should heal up okay."

Skye struggled to assimilate the information, overcome by a choking sense of guilt.

Hunter's voice intruded on her inner turmoil. "Is there anything you need?"

Skye blinked, bewildered. The thought of her own needs hadn't yet crossed her mind. She did a quick personal inventory. She wasn't hungry; she doubted she could eat even if she tried. But she was practically dying of thirst.

"Maybe some water?" she ventured.

"Be right back with it," he answered briskly. A few minutes later, she heard the beeping of the code being entered, followed by the scraping sound of the lock disengaging, and Hunter appeared in the doorway with a plastic cup of water. "Room service," he quipped with a weak grin. "Can't remember when any of us last had that." He handed the cup to her, then grimaced. "I can't stay," he said apologetically.

"I know," Skye replied quietly, accepting the water. Their eyes met for a moment, Hunter's heavy with sympathy, before he shut the door again and entered the code to re-arm the lock.

"I'm sorry I have to lock you in." His tone was regretful. "It's not that they think you'd deliberately do anything to hurt anyone, but..." He trailed off.

"I know," Skye replied, trying to keep her voice steady. "I get it." She took a sip of the water. The feel of the cool liquid on her parched tongue almost made her dizzy.

"Coulson should be coming shortly," Hunter added. "He wanted to know when you'd woken up."

"How long was I out for?" she asked, a little dazed. It felt like it had been longer than the couple of hours the ICER usually lasted.

"About six hours," Hunter replied quietly. "After we saw the ICER worked to stop the quake, Fitz gave you an extra dose of dendrotoxin to last until we could get things figured out a bit."

They'd had to sedate her after all. Like a wild animal who had to be put down so it didn't harm its handlers.

_It's no use thinking that way, Skye. They did what had to be done._

But she could think it without bitterness. It was true. She was like a wild animal, out of control. An unpredictable, unconsciously destructive force.

Thank God someone had thought to make the Cage out of vibranium. It was like they'd designed it for her.

Skye turned and leaned back against the door, sliding down until she was sitting on the floor. She heard a shuffling on the other side of the door and realized that Hunter was still out there. "Are we still at the Party House?" she asked weakly.

"No." Hunter's reply was hesitant. "We're back at the Playground." He paused for a beat. "We had to evacuate the Party House due to structural concerns."

"Some party," Skye muttered. A horrifying thought struck her. "The surrounding area?" she asked anxiously. "How bad was the damage?"

"No fatalities," he began, and Skye's breath caught in a relieved sob. "A few flattened houses nearby. Some injuries. It was a pretty remote area, and the quake seemed more localized than the others."

A tear trailed down Skye's face, and the damn table started rattling again.

Mercilessly, she tamped down her inner flood of emotions, feeling a perverse kind of satisfaction as her heart hardened and the table stopped shaking. She fished for something to distract herself, to keep her tumultuous feelings at bay. "How did you know to come check on me?" she asked.

"I was on watch. I saw you wake up," Hunter replied in an indecipherable tone.

Skye glanced up at the camera, only then realizing that its light was on. She didn't know why she should be disturbed by the knowledge that they were surveilling her. Of course they would be. That's what SHIELD always did with people who manifested unknown powers.

She'd just never been one of them.

She hadn't been on this side of that camera since her transgression with Miles, what felt like a lifetime ago. Even though part of her knew it probably shouldn't, her disgrace felt deeper this time.

Last year, her impulsivity had led her to tip off an active suspect. This time, her lack of control had compromised the lives of her entire team - of an entire region.

Last year, she'd still been a simple human girl, naively searching for the parents she'd never known.

Now, she didn't know what she was. Or what she was capable of.

Skye heard a shuffle out in the hallway and the beeping of the code being entered, and then the door was opening against her back. She stood up to allow it to swing open all the way, and Coulson stepped into the Cage. "Thank you, Hunter," Coulson said. "I'll take it from here."

Hunter nodded and walked off.

Coulson closed the door behind him and turned to Skye, studying her with eyes full of compassion.

She was wary, her fingers twitching at her sides. "Should you be in here?"

Coulson's expression was serious. "Probably not. But I figured I owed you some face time after what happened back there."

Skye swallowed hard and avoided his gaze, her eyes darting around the blank walls of the Cage.

Coulson's tone was gentle. "How are you holding up?"

"Not well." Her voice cracked.

"That's understandable." He seemed much more composed than he had been six hours ago. "This kind of thing is usually a shock."

Skye suddenly bristled, her nerves shot. "This _kind_ of thing? You mean, discovering you're not entirely human and then being transformed in some bizarre alien fog ritual that suddenly leaves you unable to control the seismic waves you're putting out that endanger everyone you care about?"

Coulson winced, and Skye's face twisted remorsefully. "I'm sorry," she said, very quietly.

"Let's sit down." He gestured toward the chair, but Skye chose to plop down onto the edge of the cot. Coulson sat in the chair instead.

"You've had about six hours longer to get used to the idea than I have," Skye said heavily.

Coulson nodded.

She lifted her eyes to meet his, and he could see that she was still utterly at a loss. "What are we going to do?"

Coulson took a deep breath and answered steadily. "We're going to take it one day at a time. We're going to have you stay in here, for now, until we know more about what we're dealing with."

Skye nodded. She knew that was really the only option.

"I've put Fitz to work ruggedizing your laptop, so we can run a hard line and you'll be able to communicate with everyone via video. You'll also be able to continue working from in here. We're going to need you. I have Bobbi following up on your leads from São Luis, but I want your eyes on it. Field missions are going to be a no-go for now, but we can continue to have you working the back end. Just like when someone is injured."

Skye nodded, her lips tight. It was just like that. Only not like that at all.

"We'll have someone assigned to you 24 hours a day - if you need anything, just wave."

"What, like a potty break?"

"About that..." Coulson grimaced.

Skye's face went blank. "Oh."

He held her gaze steadily. "For the time being, we really can't risk having you leave this room. For any reason."

Skye nodded slowly. "Right, so...privacy, out the window?"

Coulson shook his head. "We'll set something up. I want you under surveillance, for your own safety as well as so that we can continue to gather information. But I'm sure we can figure out a way to salvage your privacy."

"Good, because I don't know how I would feel about Fitz or Hunter watching me answer nature's call."

"I don't think that will be necessary." He paused, studying her with discerning eyes, and when he spoke, his voice was gentle, understanding. "Skye."

She hiccupped, trying to swallow the bewildered sobs that were pent up in her chest. Talking through the logistics had, for a moment, distracted her from the reality of what was happening here. But only for a moment.

"What's happening to me?" she asked quietly.

"I'm not entirely sure," Coulson admitted. He swallowed hard and was thankful that Skye didn't notice. He kept his voice steady. "I know your thoughts have gone catastrophic and you're assuming this is a permanent change, but I'd like to avoid drawing conclusions until we have more information. There are a lot of strange things that can happen in the wake of exposure to alien tech."

"Okay. How do you propose getting more information?"

"I've spoken to Simmons briefly. When she's recovered -"

Skye broke in, anxious. "Hunter said she was going to be okay?"

"She will be," Coulson assured her. "She isn't yet." Skye nodded slowly. "But when she is, with your permission, I would like for her to run some tests on you. Figure out exactly what's going on here. We did a general physical after San Juan, but..."

"That's fine."

"I don't know exactly what she's going to want, but it will probably include monitoring your vitals, having the DWARFs in here to measure vibrations -"

"That's fine."

"- so we can figure out what's causing this and whether it's something temporary...or not."

Skye just held his gaze. "What am I going to do if it isn't?"

"Then we're going to do what SHIELD has always done best - we're going to help you learn to control it."

Her reply was a whisper. "And what if I can't?"

Coulson's lips tightened. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

She blinked at him, wary and terrified, and bit her lip to hold in the irrational, angry things she wanted to say. Half her brain knew it was ridiculous to get angry at Coulson. The other half knew she wasn't really angry with him at all, but it felt safer to take out her anger on him than on anyone else.

Coulson stood up and came to sit beside her on the cot. He folded his hands in his lap, then said quietly, "We're going to figure this out, Skye. You're not going to be stuck in here forever. This is a temporary solution."

He lifted one arm to wrap it around her in a reassuring hug, and Skye turned, burying her face in his shoulder. She wished she could share his confidence that things were going to work out.

Coulson held the hug until Skye pulled back. "It's a little after midnight," he informed her gently. "Fitz will be working through the night to have your laptop ready in the morning, but I'm afraid there won't be much for you to do until then. It's probably best for you to get some rest while you can." Skye sighed heavily before nodding. "Is there anything you need?"

"My sweats?" she asked hesitantly. "If someone packed up my stuff before we left the Party House?" Coulson nodded. "And maybe a sticky note to cover the camera lens while I change?"

Coulson smiled a little with relief at her dry humor. "I had May pack up your things before we left," he replied. "I'll have her bring your bag in for you." He paused before asking, looking as if he wished he didn't have to, "Is it just clothing?"

Skye understood. "If she grabbed everything, there will be a couple of knickknacks in there that could become projectiles. I'll have May take them back out."

Coulson nodded, frowning apologetically. "That's probably a good idea." He made what he hoped was reassuring eye contact with Skye for a moment. "Hang in there. We're going to work this out."

She nodded.

Coulson left, re-arming the lock behind him.

A few minutes later, May came with Skye's bag. She knocked before opening the door and stepped into the Cage, taking a moment to assess Skye with perceptive eyes before giving her a quick, unexpected hug. "Skye," she said without prologue, her tone firm but compassionate, "you can't blame yourself for anything that's happened. If there were anything you could have done to prevent it, we all know you would have."

"Okay," Skye replied. She sounded unconvinced, even to herself, and she knew she wasn't fooling May. But her supervising officer, after pressing her lips together for a moment, let the matter drop.

"Here are your things," May said gently, holding out the black duffle to Skye. A little gleam of mischief twinkled in her eye as she added, "I think I got everything."

Skye unzipped the bag and pulled, from the very top, her pillow. "How did you-?"

May smirked. "It's an unusually nice pillow. And I seem to remember you doing Fitz's laundry for a couple of weeks after we first moved in. I wouldn't want that to go to waste."

A smile came over Skye's face in spite of herself. "Thanks, May."

May nodded, an affectionate warmth filling her eyes as she watched her young protégée unpack. Skye carefully stacked her clothes next to her cot, replaced the few knickknacks in the bag, and handed it to May, who traded her for a single orange sticky note.

"Get some rest," May said softly before turning to leave. "I'll be back early."

"Okay," Skye replied as the door closed, shutting her in. The reassurance that she would see May in the morning helped calm her nerves and assuage her loneliness just enough to get her moving. She stuck the sticky note over the camera lens and changed into her sweats before removing it. She started to crumple it, but thought better of it and stuck it on the wall below the camera, for future use.

Skye lay down on the cot, bunching up her pillow in her arms. She buried her face in it and breathed in the familiar scent deeply, clinging to the little bit of comfort it offered. At least one thing in life was normal.

The rattling that accompanied her to sleep, however, as a few tears slipped out to dampen her pillow, was anything but comforting.


	9. The Cage

There wasn't a clock in the Cage, and Skye apparently hadn't yet developed a creepy Ward-like sixth sense about time, so when May knocked on the door the next morning, it startled her out of sleep.

She sat up abruptly, distracted by the clatter of the table and chair flinging themselves (okay, being flung) a few inches further away from her. Geez. Now that she had figured out she was the source of the vibrations, they seemed to be happening more often.

May was waiting, so Skye called out, "Come in!"

The code beeped, and May stood in the doorway, holding the most ruggedly tricked-out laptop Skye had ever seen.

"Is that _mine_?" she asked in disbelief. "It looks like it could survive nuclear war."

May's lips curved into a pleased smirk. "Fitz did a good job. Get logged in and let's get started."

Skye blinked. "Okay!" She supposed it made sense that May wasn't going to hang out. But when May had said she would see Skye this morning, Skye hadn't realized that she meant on a screen.

She took the laptop and cords from May, who added, "See you in a few," before closing and locking the door.

Skye plugged in the computer and got it booted up and logged on to the Playground network before an invite came across on FACE.

(When Skye had learned that the secure SHIELD equivalent of Skype was actually called FACE - Facilitating Avenue for Coordination and Execution - she had wondered, out loud, whether SHIELD had teams of people who sat around in rooms all day thinking up cool-sounding and completely contrived acronyms. When she pointed out, repeatedly, that it should really be abbreviated FAFCAE, she got nothing but rolled eyes from everyone. It still drove her crazy.)

_Incoming transmission from Agent Melinda May_

_*ACCEPT*_

May adjusted the webcam on her end, and Skye saw that she was in the gym. "Training and conditioning can't stop because you're in the Cage," May informed her matter-of-factly, with her hands on her hips. "Today I'm going to teach you how to stay sharp in 225 square feet or less with no equipment. If you need to get changed, you have five minutes."

Skye blinked and nodded. Back to business it was, then.

* * * * * * *

An hour and a half later, Skye's muscles were aching in a familiar way, and one less worry was rattling around in her mind. Her marksmanship might suffer from lack of practice while she was stuck in the Cage, but at least she'd be able to maintain her strength and endurance. And the mood boost from working out was doing wonders for her outlook.

"Good work," May assessed, and Skye basked in the approval. May's compliments were sparingly expressed and always treasured. "You'll need to set an alarm on your laptop," May continued. "I expect to see you here for tai chi every morning at 4am. Push-ups for every minute late."

Skye nodded, with a small grin. "Sounds great."

There was a momentary, awkward pause as the illusion of normalcy wavered.

"Thanks, May."

A faint shadow darkened May's countenance, but she banished it quickly. "I'll see you at briefing at 0800."

Skye nodded, and Agent May ended the transmission. Skye breathed deeply and reached her aching arms up toward the ceiling, bending one arm behind her head and grasping her elbow to stretch out her triceps.

She was just taking stock of how sweaty and gross she felt when there came a knock on the door.

"Who is it?" she called out.

"Morning shift," came Hunter's cheeky voice.

"Come in."

The code beeped, and Hunter was standing in the hallway. "They gave me the 6am to 6pm shift," he informed her, jokingly aggrieved. "I'm not sure I'll ever be able to forgive you. I haven't been up this early since Christmas when I was eight."

_Coulson must have told everyone to act normal,_ Skye realized abruptly, with mixed feelings. But oh well. It was actually kind of a relief to have Hunter snarking at her, instead of treating her like she was going to break.

"What happened when you turned nine?" she asked coolly.

"I realized the gifts would still be there after I slept in. Made my mum very happy," he replied cheerfully. "Now, Agent May informed me that you were going to need this?" He kicked a plastic tub on the floor next to him, and Skye realized it was filled with water.

The thought of scrubbing all the post-workout grime off her body sounded exquisite. But the appeal was tempered by the uncomfortable realization that she would be sponge bathing, with a sticky note the only thing between her and surveilling eyes.

Hunter must have picked up on her discomfort, as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a roll of Scotch tape. "Here," he said, offering it to her. "To prevent any catastrophes from the stickiness wearing off the sticky note."

"I see you know everything," Skye replied dryly. She accepted the roll of tape with distinct relief. It was better than nothing.

Hunter momentarily grew more serious. "Coulson said something about sending someone out to buy one of those room divider screen things for you, so you don't have to continue relying on sticky notes."

"That would definitely be an improvement," Skye mumbled. The strange reality of life in the Cage was setting in more and more, and, creeping in around the edges of her conscious thought, she felt the heavy, panicky sensation of being trapped.

"Well," Hunter said suddenly, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had set in, "I'm supposed to make these drops as quickly as possible, and I'm sure the water is cooling by the second, so...?" He lifted the tub of water and handed it to Skye, followed by a washcloth, a towel, and her shampoo and body wash.

"Breakfast is in an hour, briefing in two," Hunter rattled off in a businesslike tone. "Laundry pick-ups will be once daily in the evening. That _won't_ be any of my business," he clarified.

"Wow," Skye replied, her eyes wide. "You really weren't kidding about room service."

"You have no idea." He rolled his eyes in mock despair and left.

Skye found herself grinning.

* * * * * * *

The briefing almost felt normal, except for the absence of Simmons and the fact that Skye couldn't turn her head to see the people next to her. The web cam's field of view only stretched wide enough to accommodate Coulson, May, Fitz, and Mack's elbow.

"Okay, team, here's where we're at," Coulson began straightforwardly. "We've got an as-yet-unresolved incident in São Luis and a new report of a Hydra base in Delaware that's been seeing an uptick in activity and could benefit from a little sabotage. Agent Morse, is your leg up for field duty yet?"

Off-camera, Bobbi cleared her throat. "Of course."

"Okay. Hunter, Morse, and May will be our away team for that mission. We'll depart at 2100 tonight, after I've had a chance to gather additional logistics. May, you'll be working with me this afternoon on designing that op."

Agent May nodded.

"Now, where are we on Brazil?" Coulson turned to Fitz.

The engineer looked a bit ill at ease about being thrust into the role of resident biochem expert. Skye remembered that after San Juan, Simmons had mentioned something about Fitz wanting to leave the lab to work in the garage with Mack. With Simmons out of commission for a while, that definitely wasn't going to be possible.

Maybe _something_ good would come from all of this.

Fitz tapped his fingers on the tabletop. "So far, test results have been inconclusive," he began. "No foreign substances, no radiation, no abnormalities detected on any of the tests we were able to run."

"Have you exhausted all the possibilities?" Coulson's question was sharp, not with frustration, but with concern.

"Well, we lost the, uh..." - Fitz's gaze flicked nervously over toward Skye - "...the samples, so there were some results that we weren't able to get. We could try again with new samples, but Simmons says the results won't be as conclusive, since too much time will have passed between the incident and the blood draw; any foreign substances could already be working their way out of the bloodstream."

Skye winced, trying not to keep a mental tally of all the things she was screwing up.

Coulson was quiet at first. "I'll have Agent Ferreira send another round of samples," he decided firmly. "The least we can do is try."

Fitz nodded. "I'll touch base with Jemma and see what her plans were for the remainder of the testing."

Coulson hesitated before asking the next question. "How's the tech recovery process going?"

Fitz shot another anxious glance in Skye's direction, and Skye cast her eyes upward, wishing she could disappear into the hard plastic chair on which she was sitting. Tears were stinging her eyes again.

"Well, we lost a good deal of it, sir. But I have teams still working on what can be scavenged, and even the things that are broken, we should be able to disassemble them and at least learn what Hydra was up to. There may be some components that we can repurpose."

"Good. Let's keep your lab team on that. That tech has been sitting in boxes for too long. This is a good excuse to have to do something with it."

"Yes, sir." Fitz looked relieved that his turn at debrief was over.

"Morse? Skye? Any luck tracking down our suspects?"

Coulson's grim expression told Skye that Bobbi was shaking her head, too.

"These guys are ghosts," came Bobbi's voice from somewhere behind the laptop.

"Definitely," Skye agreed. "This is the most complicated trail I think I've ever seen. Whoever these people are, they don't want to be found, and they know how to keep that from happening."

Coulson was looking at her. "Do you think you can crack it?"

Skye inhaled and exhaled deeply before answering. "Give me some time. I still have a few ideas. And I might be able to call in some favors."

"All right," Coulson replied. "So we're thirty-six hours out and still at square one," he summarized, looking around at the team. "Let's try to get to square two. You're all dismissed. Field team, I'll see you at 2100."

The breath caught in Skye's throat as Coulson turned to talk quietly with May and Fitz disappeared off her screen in the direction of the lab. Mack, Bobbi, Hunter, and Koenig walked into and out of the frame as they left the room, and suddenly an aching sense of disconnection closed in around her.

Skye blinked away the tears that had been hovering in her eyes and ended the transmission. This was no different from any other day around the base. If she'd been at that briefing in person, she'd have picked up her laptop and hightailed it to the nearest empty room to work in peace. That's exactly what she was doing now.

Except - crap. She was thirsty.

Skye had just buried her face in her elbows on the table when there was a knock. "Room service!"

A quick, incredulous laugh slipped from her lips. "Come on in."

Hunter was holding a bottle of water. "A little birdie told me you might need this," he explained.

"Your timing is perfect," she replied quietly, accepting the water.

"I'll be in the lab," Hunter went on with an ironic expression, "doing whatever unskilled tasks Fitz assigns me, but I'll have an eye on the video feed. Wave or FACE if you need anything."

"FAFCAE," Skye muttered under her breath.

Hunter's jaw slackened. "Exactly!" he burst out triumphantly. "I've been telling Bobbi that for years. These SHIELD acronyms are ridiculous. It's a daft name anyway."

Skye couldn't help but laugh. It figured that of everyone, the person who finally agreed with her would be Hunter.

A moment of companionable amusement enveloped them. They had never been close, but Skye appreciated how great Hunter had been over the last few days. And since it seemed like she was going to be seeing a lot of him, it was nice that their working relationship was starting to feel a little more like a friendship. "Thank you," she said frankly, and she meant for more than just the water.

"No problem," he replied, studying her soberly, with a hint of the concern he'd expressed over the last few days. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then seemed to think better of it - maybe, thought Skye, remembering that he was supposed to be acting as if things were normal. "See you in a few hours," he said instead. He started to pull the door closed, then turned back toward Skye, raising an eyebrow inquisitively. "Any chance there'll be tip money forthcoming?"

Skye rolled her eyes, and Hunter flashed a cheeky grin before locking her back in.


	10. Denial

It had been eight days, Skye was pretty sure, since the earthquake at the Party House. Eight days of living in the Cage. The days and nights seemed to blur into each other a little, with only the numbers on her laptop screen and the events of her daily routine to mark their passing.

It really wasn't too bad, most of the time. After all, she was used to being alone in a small space, after living in her van. She had her laptop, and work to do, which helped keep her mind off her surroundings and the reason for them. And Coulson had sent someone out for a lightweight room divider screen, which made attending to her more personal needs much more comfortable. After her nightmares had knocked the screen over the first few times (which was a hell of a way to wake up), Fitz had come and somehow managed to bolt it to the floor. So that, at least, was good.

Still, it got old looking at the same four gray, blank walls every day.

May tried to encourage her during their morning sessions. "This is invaluable practice for maintaining your physical and psychological strength if you're ever in captivity," she assured Skye firmly. "Most agents would benefit tremendously from an experience like this. It's making you stronger."

_If you're ever in captivity._ The words echoed around in Skye's brain. If ever.

She knew she wasn't a prisoner. Not really. After all, she was there voluntarily; she wanted to keep the team safe until they figured out what the heck was going on with her and how to keep it under control. She wouldn't leave, if she had the choice. But she couldn't help but notice the parallels between her present situation and Ward's during his imprisonment in Vault D, and a heavy sense of disgrace tugged constantly at the edges of her thoughts. She couldn't escape the truth that she _had_ to be locked up, because, even though unconsciously, she was a danger to the team.

And especially at the beginning of the day, when Hunter brought her toiletries to her, and at the end, when mercifully it was May or Bobbi who came to attend to the SHIELD equivalent of a chamber pot, Skye was acutely reminded of how both her privacy and her independence had been stripped away.

And of what a tremendous burden she had become. She hated it - knowing she was a drain on manpower that could be used more effectively for beating back Hydra and rebuilding SHIELD. Watching the team go on missions without her, knowing full well how much easier it would be with another field agent in the mix. Coulson had been forced into the field twice in the last week, when he should really be out recruiting or in his office coordinating.

Skye sighed, tapping her fingers on the table next to her open laptop and empty breakfast dishes. She was out of ideas again, which was why she was sitting here brooding. She'd managed, after the first five days of trying, to track down the physical location from which the intel in São Luis had originated, but when the SHIELD team from Rio de Janeiro had arrived, they'd found nothing but a cleaned-out warehouse. Whoever had been there hadn't left so much as a fingerprint. Since then, Skye had been combing cyberspace and reaching out to every contact she still had to see if anyone had heard anything - even a rumor - about this nearly untraceable source. But everything was coming back empty.

On top of that, the sensors attached to her chest were itching. Skye fought the urge to tear them off.

Simmons was still out of commission, a fact that nearly crushed Skye with guilt and worry whenever she allowed herself to think about it. But Coulson, Fitz, and Skye had decided a few days ago to begin moving forward with what testing they could do in her absence: wirelessly monitoring Skye's vital signs and putting two DWARFs on patrol in the Cage to continually measure the strength of any vibrations. The readings would be stored for Simmons to analyze when she was feeling up to it, and they'd have a head start with days' worth of data.

Hence the blood pressure cuff and pulse oximeter perpetually attached to Skye's left arm, as well as the sensors to detect any vibrations at skin level. She went through phases of feeling like a lab rat. Plus, it was really hard to type with that irritating little clip on her pointer finger. After four days, it was driving her crazy.

_Don't be a pansy. Things could be much worse,_ she reminded herself.

Sneezy bleeped at her quietly, and Skye stuck her tongue out at the DWARF, which was hovering up in the corner of the Cage. A few seconds later, an invite came up on FACE.

_Incoming transmission from Agent Lance Hunter_

Skye groaned, but inwardly felt a little rush of relief at the interruption. Hunter had the day shift five days a week, with the result that Skye was seeing even more of him than she had expected. On the third day, she'd asked him why he was assigned to "Skyewatch" so often, and he had blithely pointed out that his skill set - consisting primarily of combat, survival, and covert ops - was rarely needed around the base. Consequently, he had more time on his hands than the others.

Skye wondered what he usually did around here when he wasn't bringing her meals or taking her mind off things with well-timed interruptions. Thankfully, he had a good sense of humor and a knack for recognizing when she was starting to go stir crazy.

_*ACCEPT*_

"Are you picking fights with the electronics now?" Hunter led off genially.

Skye's lips quirked in a faint smile. "He started it," she replied, with exaggerated peevishness.

"What has that poor little robot ever done to you?"

"He was staring at me," she grumbled, then heard an almost hysterical giggle slip from her lips. Yep. She was losing her mind.

Hunter looked torn between sympathy and laughter. "Morning briefing in ten. Think you can make it?"

Skye heaved a sigh. "Yeah."

"I hear there'll be a pleasant surprise."

Skye arched an eyebrow. "Like that Hydra has been eradicated, SHIELD restored to its former glory, and I've stopped making things shake?"

Hunter grimaced. "Maybe not that pleasant. But better than staring at the wall or making faces at DWARFs."

* * * * * * *

The pleasant surprise was obvious as soon as Skye accepted the transmission from Coulson. There, standing next to him, was Jemma Simmons - still a little pale, but bright-eyed and steady.

"Simmons!" Skye exclaimed. Joy and relief flooded her, quickly tainted with apprehension as she realized she didn't know what kind of reception to expect from someone she had, however unwillingly, been responsible for injuring.

But Simmons' face broke into a smile upon seeing her, and Skye nearly dissolved into tears. The two women's eyes met in an emotional exchange, but there wasn't time to say anything more before Coulson started the briefing.

"I think everyone will agree that it's wonderful to have you back with us, Jemma," he began warmly, and Simmons beamed. Skye nodded vehemently in agreement.

"Thank you, sir."

"Unfortunately, we don't have the luxury of easing you back into things. We need you too much. Where would you like to start?"

Simmons shuffled through the papers before her and brushed a lock of hair back from her face. "Well, I've given instructions to my team in the lab regarding the samples from Brazil. Unfortunately, I think there's very little more we'll be able to learn from them at this point in time, unless we're very lucky. Which means..." She paused.

Fitz supplied what Simmons seemed hesitant to say. "We're going to have to quarantine the affected agents until either we observe negative effects -"

"-or enough time has passed that we can safely assume they are out of danger," Simmons finished, glancing over cautiously to gauge Coulson's reaction.

He was impassive. "How long are we talking?"

Simmons seemed to be steeling herself. "The longest typical incubation period I know of for an Earth-originated virus is 90 days. With the possibility that we're dealing with something alien that we can't detect, I would recommend at least twice that."

Skye's jaw dropped. " _Six months?_ "

Simmons nodded, apologetic but earnest, and glanced back over at Coulson. "I realize it's a tremendous inconvenience, especially at a time when SHIELD is so short-staffed, but if we are dealing with alien virology, it's something we can't risk allowing to spread."

Coulson nodded, drawing a deep breath. "I'll let Agent Ferreira know your recommendations." He put both hands onto the table and leaned over it heavily.

The room fell silent. After a moment, Simmons cleared her throat. "For today, sir, I'd like to work with Skye. I've been looking over the data, and I have a few theories I'd like to investigate."

Coulson blinked, pulling himself back to the briefing. "That sounds terrific. In that case, Hunter, I'm turning you and Mack over to Koenig for inventory. It's been a while since we've done a comprehensive count."

Skye heard a familiar male voice faintly mutter, "Bloody hell."

_Ah. So that's what he usually does._

* * * * * * *

Skye waited a little nervously as Simmons made her way to the lab from the briefing room.

_Incoming transmission from Agent Jemma Simmons_

_*ACCEPT*_

The tears started welling up in Skye's eyes again as soon as Simmons' face appeared on the screen. "Oh, God, Simmons," she began brokenly. "I'm so glad you're okay. I'm so sorry."

Simmons smiled, a bit more weakly than before. "I'm glad I'm okay, too. It felt a bit dicey for a moment there."

"I'm so sorry," Skye repeated shakily.

Simmons' eyes were deeply empathetic, as though she wanted to reach through the computer and give Skye a hug. "Oh, Skye, it isn't your fault," she protested fervently. "I ought to have had better safeguards in place before we started trying to trigger you. I didn't realize things could get out of control so quickly."

A tear slipped down Skye's cheek, and she absently reached up to brush it away. "Well, I'm pretty out of control," she murmured bitterly.

Simmons looked chastened. "That's not what I meant," she apologized, her brown eyes holding Skye's gaze.

Skye flicked the tears away, pulling herself together. "No, I know it isn't." She took a deep breath. "How are you?"

"I'm well," Simmons assured her with a smile. "Still a bit weak from being down so long, but the spinning in my head has stopped and I can think clearly again." She frowned, looking at Skye searchingly. "How are you? I can imagine that discovering you're manifesting powers would be rather...shocking."

"To say the least," Skye said quietly, realizing she was being evasive. She didn't really want to talk about her emotional state; it had been working better to ignore it. Fewer things vibrated that way. "How do people usually respond?" she asked, hoping to deflect Simmons' question.

Simmons studied Skye's face, seeming to sense the diversion, but she answered. "A number of different ways, really. There are some who've always wanted something like this to happen: they've always wanted to be special, or they've been looking for a big break. Those people can be dangerous. There are some who respond with shock - it hasn't sunk in yet, and it doesn't for quite some time. There are some who are in denial - they try to convince themselves and others that, really, there's nothing unusual going on. And then some are angry or withdrawn." Simmons paused, then added thoughtfully, "I suppose it's the different stages of grief, really - denial, bargaining, depression."

"Grief?" Skye was confused.

"Well, yes." Simmons' eyebrows furrowed. "It isn't the same kind of grief as when someone dies -" her thoughtful expression faltered briefly - "but it's a loss nonetheless. A loss of the life one expected, of a coherent sense - or perhaps any sense - of one's identity. A grief response is normal," she concluded gently.

Skye was quiet.

"I think I'm in shock," she mumbled eventually. "I'm really hoping this turns out to be a temporary effect of exposure to whatever was inside the Obelisk."

Simmons gave her an obviously forced smile that, while meant to be reassuring, was so easy to see through that it failed utterly. Skye sighed. So Simmons had a hunch it was permanent, too, despite Coulson's reassurances.

"How did you learn so much about the psychological side of all this, anyway?" Skye asked lightly, trying not to dwell on her thoughts.

"Three semesters of psychology at the Academy. It's fascinating, really, how many ways psychology and physiology can influence one another." Skye recognized the look in her friend's eye as Simmons slipped into science mode. "And how many...unusual phenomena can be linked to both." She looked down, thumbing through the pages of data from Skye's monitors. "Like this one, perhaps." She looked back up, making eye contact. "Would you like to talk about what I've found?"

Skye nodded.

Simmons continued, her demeanor now thoroughly professional. "The data indicate that the waves you're producing are well-correlated with spikes in both your blood pressure and heart rate, which take place just before the vibrations begin. Those physical symptoms could be consistent with a release of catecholamines in your system."

"What are cat...?"

"Catecholamines. Stress hormones," Simmons clarified. "Adrenaline, among others."

"Right."

"I know we've speculated that the strong emotions themselves might be triggering the pulses, but you also had one painful memory, in our initial tests, that did not trigger anything. So I'd like to investigate the effects of your catecholamine levels on the vibrations, as well as the effects of your emotions on them."

Skye nodded, not clear what the implications were. "Okay. What does that mean?"

"I'd like to take blood samples each time the phenomenon occurs, as well as several times throughout the day, so that we have control samples with which to compare. And I'd like for you to begin journaling your emotional state: what you're feeling and thinking and how strong those emotions seem to you, subjectively. Again, throughout the day, and particularly when you notice the vibrations occurring."

Skye blinked uncomfortably, pressing her lips together. She was suddenly finding it difficult to maintain her composure. "Okay."

"Skye," Simmons said quietly, looking her in the eye. "This is going to require allowing yourself to connect with some of those emotions that I'm sure you would rather avoid. We have to be able to test their effects."

The compassionate understanding in Simmons' eyes was too much. "Got it," Skye mumbled, grabbing her water bottle and taking a swig as an excuse to break eye contact.

Simmons moved on carefully, sensing her discomfort. "I'd also like to do a 24-hour EEG, to measure your brain activity. That will be...irritating-" Simmons grimaced apologetically - "as you'll have to have electrodes attached to your scalp for the entire day. Hopefully, it won't be longer than that. We'll just have to make sure that a couple of episodes take place during that time."

More electrodes. _Episodes._ Skye knew Simmons' med-speak was meant to make this all more comfortable by depersonalizing it, but it had the actual effect of feeling...dehumanizing.

_That's_ if _I'm even human._ The thought flitted through her mind quickly.

She would definitely feel like a lab rat, now. Skye had a sudden panicky sense of powerlessness. It felt like when she was watching Trip disintegrate in her dreams, trapped in a rebellious body that wouldn't obey her commands to move.

Trapped in her body.

Fitz suddenly burst into the lab behind Simmons. "Coulson's called an emergency briefing," he said breathlessly, clutching his side. "Bring Skye."

Simmons and Skye exchanged concerned glances. Simmons picked up the laptop and carried it, screen out, as she hurried toward the briefing room.

It was strange to see the familiar hallways Skye hadn't walked in more than a week. Everything looked just the same, as if nothing had changed.

Coulson was solemn as they entered the briefing room. Simmons set the laptop on the table so that Skye could see him and May.

"We've had another one," Coulson informed them in clipped tones, once everyone had arrived. "This time in Lubbock, Texas. Agents ambushed, knocked out with some kind of gas. Woke up an hour later with needle marks."

"What's in Lubbock?" Skye heard Hunter ask.

"A report of an individual with superhuman strength. He was captured on a cell phone video last week moving a city bus."

May's eyes widened. Skye was pretty sure everyone else's had, too.

"The team was investigating what was believed to be his place of residence - an apartment complex on Brownfield Drive called The Cove. The second team that arrived on site reported that the apartment was unfurnished."

"He wasn't really living there?" May guessed.

Coulson nodded. "Likely. But he wanted it to look like he was."

"What was he doing moving a city bus?" Skye asked, incredulous.

"I don't know," Coulson replied, almost lightly, but with an edge. "Maybe catching the attention of SHIELD agents."

May's lips tightened slightly, her fierce eyes giving away the agitation behind her composed countenance.

"This has just taken first priority," Coulson continued grimly. "São Luis was not an isolated incident, and all our agents in the field are potentially at risk. We need to track these people down and figure out what they're doing and why they're doing it. Skye, Bobbi, I want you both on the electronic trail. Figure out who rented the apartment, who posted the cell phone video. Simmons, I have Agent Thomson drawing blood as we speak. Fitz, let's get your drones in the air, and then I want you and Mack assisting Simmons with analysis."

"Yes, sir," came Fitz's voice.

"Sir?" Simmons broke in. She must have been making a gesture Skye couldn't see, because Coulson nodded in acknowledgement.

"The trail is fresh and time-sensitive," he replied, almost apologetic. "You and Skye will have to continue once we've gotten somewhere with this."

Coulson made questioning eye contact with Skye, who nodded. She was a SHIELD agent first. That was fine with her.

Denial had nothing to do with it.


	11. Breaking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: The apartment manager referenced in this story is entirely fictional and in no way bears any resemblance to, nor is based on, the real apartment manager at The Cove in Lubbock, whom I have never met. ;)

Blood. Fear. Determination. Darkness.

Rubble falling through shafts of sunlight.

Grief that seared her lungs so that she couldn't breathe, couldn't move. She was paralyzed, choking, dying.

Skye's whole body convulsed before she opened her eyes and realized where she was. The table and chair were skittering around the floor of the Cage.

Another nightmare.

Skye took a deep breath, pulling herself together, then quickly leaned over the side of the cot to grab the reinforced box tied to its leg. She flipped the box open and pulled out the supplies she needed.

She wasn't sure she'd ever get the hang of putting a tourniquet on herself with one hand. But it had to be done.

Skye swabbed her arm with an alcohol wipe, then attached the needle to the holder and took another deep breath before sliding it into her arm. She pushed the collection tube onto the holder, wincing at the way the motion tweaked the needle, and was relieved to see the tube begin to fill with blood.

Oh good. She'd hit the vein the first time, this time. It was harder than Simmons made it look.

Especially when her hands were usually shaking.

The draw finished, Skye removed the tourniquet and pressed a cotton ball onto the site before popping the needle into the sharps container, exhaling in relief. She shook the tube of blood, then glanced over at her laptop (which had stopped shaking) to see what time it was. She wrote the time on the tube's label: _0137._

She carefully replaced the blood draw supplies in the box, putting the tube into the miniaturized refrigerator compartment Fitz had designed, then pulled a notebook out from under her pillow.

_0137_  
_Nightmare. San Juan. Fear, horror. Feeling of being trapped. Grief._

Her hand faltered, and she had to pause a moment before continuing.

_Emotional intensity: 8._

Skye shoved the notebook and pen back under her pillow and rolled onto her back, staring at the ceiling. Eventually, exhaustion overcame her reluctance to sleep, and she dropped off again.

* * * * * * *

There was a knock on the door shortly after her alarm began sounding. Skye squinted at the laptop screen, wondering if she'd somehow fallen back to sleep and was late for tai chi. But it was only 3:32.

"Hang on," she called out groggily. She sat up, twisting her hair up into a knot and making sure her pj's were decent. She padded over to the door in bare feet. "Come in."

Hunter was standing in the hallway, stifling a yawn. Skye blinked in confusion. It was Sunday morning, and he wasn't due back until Monday at 0600. "What are you doing here?"

"My turn for overnight," he explained mildly, leaning heavily against the door frame. "I'll admit I haven't been awake the whole time, but I saw you had to do a blood draw around 0130. I've come to take it down to the lab for Simmons when she gets there."

Skye nodded blankly, still fuzzy from sleep. She shuffled back over to her cot and opened up the reinforced box, emptied the refrigerator compartment, then came back to deposit the contents in Hunter's gloved hand.

His eyes widened slightly as realization set in. "Three tubes?" he observed softly.

"Yeah. Crappy night."

"I'll say." He studied Skye cautiously for a moment, and she avoided his gaze by examining the blank gray wall. "I'm sorry. That's rough."

"Tell me about it."

"D'you need anything before tai chi? Oatmeal? Smoothie?" His voice was gentle and genuinely concerned, and Skye felt something in her heart break just a little. She scrambled to reinforce the walls around it, not wanting to melt down.

Not that Hunter hadn't seen her do it before. She just couldn't go there. Once the tears started, they might never stop.

"I'm fine, thanks," she replied, forcing herself to be courteous, even though she really felt too drained for pleasantries.

"D'you want to talk about it?"

That was the last thing she wanted. It would just make the floodgates open. "No."

Hunter continued examining her, and she continued looking everywhere but at him. "Listen," he offered quietly after a moment, "I know you've got a lot you're working through. If you ever need a listening ear, I've got two, and plenty of time on my hands. And you know where to find me."

"Thanks," she repeated, her voice quavering a little.

They stood facing one another, Skye carefully avoiding eye contact, until Hunter awkwardly nodded a goodbye and pulled the door closed.

_Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep._

And she was locked in again.

* * * * * * *

Skye felt like a zombie in the briefing that morning. Her much-interrupted sleep, combined with a strange emotional numbness, left her in a kind of mental fog. She was only half-aware that Hunter - appearing on her screen today by virtue of ending up next to Coulson - kept tossing concerned glances in her direction.

The briefing proceeded as so many had lately - devoid of answers. Simmons' testing was all coming up empty. All the leads on the super-powered city-bus-moving guy in Lubbock were dead ends.

The video had been legit - posted by a college kid named Jonathan Stevens, who had a mediocre cell phone camera and a YouTube channel primarily consisting of video game walkthroughs and videos of his cat. (He had more hits in one day on the bus-moving video than he'd had total in four years.) Agent Thomson had brought him in for questioning and discovered that someone had paid him $50 to stand on that street corner at that time, but Stevens couldn't really describe the guy who'd done it. "Long trench coat and a hat," he'd said. "Sunglasses, even though it was a cloudy day. He was white, maybe 6'?"

"That narrows it down," Bobbi had observed dryly when she heard the report.

Her research at the apartment complex hadn't come up with much more. The studio apartment had been rented on a month-to-month basis by the man in the video, but all the documentation provided - under the name of James Smith - had been completely falsified. Agent Thomson had interrogated the apartment manager, too. He seemed clean, if a bit oblivious.

Apparently, though, Bobbi didn't agree with that assessment. Skye became aware that a mild confrontation was taking place.

"I find it incredible that the manager didn't follow up on _any_ of the documentation," Bobbi stated bluntly. "Are you sure that Thomson's interrogation tactics were adequate?"

"Agent Thomson's tactics were more than adequate for the situation at hand," Coulson replied mildly.

"Sir, with all due respect, maybe we should consider a second round of interrogation. I'm more than willing to -"

"I'm satisfied with the results of Agent Thomson's interrogation, Agent Morse," Coulson interrupted, his tone pleasant, but with an undercurrent of steel. "But thank you for your willingness."

Skye caught how Hunter's jaw set as he glanced from Coulson to Bobbi and back.

_Huh._

"Skye," Coulson turned to her, and she jumped. "What do we have from security and traffic cameras?"

"Squat," she summarized. "The place where Sunglasses met Stevens was a dead zone; there's nothing, coming or going, except Stevens a little while later. After the bus, Hulk walked down a side street and then just, like, literally vanished. Whoever these people are, they know where cameras are and how to avoid being caught by them unless they want to be."

Coulson let out an exasperated sigh. Skye had to fight not to zone out as he went back over what they knew - or, more precisely, didn't know - and they figured out the next steps.

* * * * * * *

"Simmons." Coulson pulled her aside after the briefing, nodding toward the laptop where Skye had just ended the transmission. "How is she doing?"

Simmons glanced at the laptop and back to him, pressing her lips together. "Not particularly well, sir," she admitted. "The strain of captivity is wearing on her, and that itself would be difficult enough without the losses she's unwilling to process. Unfortunately, to make any progress with sorting out her physiologic symptoms, I really need to see the effects of psychological distress when she is awake, as well as when she's asleep." Simmons' smile was tinged with sadness. "You know Skye - she always wants to be strong, to do what's necessary. Unfortunately, what's necessary right now is that she allow herself not to be strong, and that's a difficult pill for her to swallow."

Coulson nodded, frowning. "I'll go talk to her. I should have done it already, but..." He pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing wearily. "It's been crazy around here."

Simmons smiled encouragingly. "I'm sure she would welcome a visit from you, sir."

A few feet away, Hunter leaned against the wall, listening.

* * * * * * *

The knock on Skye's door was quiet, and she almost didn't hear it at first. "Come in," she called, leaning back in her chair to stretch.

Coulson came in, closing the door behind him. He was the only one who ever came in, and it always made Skye a little nervous: even though there wasn't much in her room - in the Cage, she mentally corrected - that could become a projectile, the extent of her powers was still a mystery, and she felt safer when everyone was safe from her. But something in Coulson compelled him to come in person. She suspected it was the colossal over-responsibility he tended to carry.

He hadn't come in several days now, since before they'd started the blood draws. She had to admit, it was really good to see him. And to have another human in the room.

He came over and sat down on her cot, and she turned around backward in the chair to face him. "I heard you had a rough night," he began, lightly but empathetically.

Skye nodded carefully, her jaw working as she tried to maintain her composure.

"Simmons tells me you've been having lots of nightmares, but no manifestations during the day."

"Yeah."

"She also told me that she needs data from conscious episodes in order to draw accurate conclusions."

Skye cleared her throat. "Yeah."

"She _also_ told me that, according to her assessment, you're in denial and keeping a pretty tight lid on your emotions."

Skye nodded.

"That's gotta suck," he observed mildly.

Skye couldn't help it. She laughed quietly.

Coulson smiled, then sobered, his eyes full of caring. "I know that this is hard for you," he went on quietly. "To tell you the truth, I don't really know how to handle it, either. We need you, and we need you able to keep it together...but Simmons tells me that what she needs, and what you need right now, is for you not to."

Skye nodded, holding his gaze. She knew she'd been avoiding what Simmons had asked her to do, hoping they'd be able to find out enough just from the results from her nightmares. But apparently that wasn't cutting it. She spoke in a low voice. "I'm afraid that once I open those doors, I won't be able to shut them."

Coulson nodded. "You may not be able to. Not at first."

She looked down at her hands. "I'm not sure I'll be able to function," she admitted.

Coulson reached toward her and took one of her hands in his. "You may not be able to at first. But you can't stay in here forever. As much as we need you to function, we also need you out of this room. And you need some answers. I know what that's like," he added quietly. "To have unexplained things happening to you, and to want answers. I want you to be able to find them. We can handle things out here while you take some time to work on that."

Skye nodded, that little something in her heart cracking again. Tears stood in her eyes. "Thanks, A.C."

He smiled. "No problem. Sorry I took so long between visits. Things are a little crazy out there."

"I know."

"But don't you worry about that. You do what you need to do, so you can get out of here and I can start sending you into the field instead of me. I'm getting too old for this." He winked at her, and Skye cracked a smile.

"I'll do what I can."

Coulson stood up. "Are they taking good care of you?"

Skye smiled up at him. "Yeah."

"Good." Coulson was serious. "If anything is lacking, you let me know."

"Hunter could stop asking me for tips."

Coulson's lips quirked in an amused grin. "Duly noted."

They looked at each other. "Thanks for coming," Skye said quietly.

Coulson nodded, a shadow crossing his face. "Hang in there. This is a rough road, but we're going to get to the end of it."

"Okay."

Coulson cast one last encouraging gaze at her on his way out the door.

_Click. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. Scrape._

Skye exhaled gustily, leaning her head against the back of the chair. After a moment, she made her way over to her cot, sitting cross-legged and resting her head back against the wall. She waved flippantly at Simmons (who, she knew, was on surveillance duty today) and then closed her eyes.

Skye took a couple of deep breaths, allowing the emotions percolating below the surface of her consciousness to begin to rise to it.

_Pain_

_Confusion_

_Guilt_

She felt her heart rate rising and heard the faint humming of vibrations.

_Trip is gone. My mother is gone. Whitehall murdered her. Whitehall is dead._

Death. It followed her everywhere she went. First her father. Now her.

_If he hadn't -_

Skye was caught off guard by an overwhelming surge of anger, and the table and chair slammed into the wall of the Cage. The screen shook violently and creaked, almost breaking in half. The strength of her powers momentarily shocked her out of her thoughts, but the surge of emotion returned immediately with renewed intensity.

 _If he hadn't pursued me; if he had left me alone; if_ Ward _hadn't been such a delusional asshole_ ; _if_ I _hadn't gone down there, oh God, if I hadn't been such an_ idiot _, none of this would have happened._

Skye's eyes were squeezed shut, and she was vaguely aware that she was jamming her fingernails into the palms of her hands. Her mind was overwhelmed with the screaming of her heart and the rattling of her surroundings.

 _I didn't ask for any of this. I didn't ask for my lunatic father to chase me across the world, to assault my friends, to drag me to some bizarre "destiny" that_ I didn't want _; I didn't ask to be the daughter of a monster and someone "special". It isn't fair. It isn't right. It shouldn't_ be _like this._

_Trip shouldn't be gone. My mother shouldn't be gone. I shouldn't be here._

_If I had never gone looking, if I'd left well enough alone, if I'd stayed the hell away from SHIELD, Trip would still be alive._

Her anguish demanded a physical vent, and she slammed her open hand against the wall of the Cage once - twice - three times before slumping against the wall, her palm stinging.

 _I never wanted to be special. I never wanted a big break. I just want all of this to_ stop. _I want out of here. I have to stop being such a useless drain on everyone I care about._

The anger slowly softened into despair, and tears began to roll freely down Skye's cheeks.

A frightened, little-girl voice deep within her cried out. _How long are they going to put up with me before they send me away?_

Skye crumpled onto her pillow.

* * * * * * *

Over in the lab, Fitz turned to Simmons. "Are we going to do something to intervene?"

Simmons turned to him with a sad, watery smile. "I'm afraid there's nothing that we _can_ do, Fitz. Skye's only way out of this is to work through it. And we need her to, if we're to discover what's behind the abilities she's manifesting. She's breaking, and it's painful, but it's progress."

A tear trailed down Simmons' cheek, and Fitz gingerly placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. She covered it with her own hand and closed her eyes briefly, as if overcome, before opening them to continue watching Skye.


	12. Results

The next days were exhausting and tumultuous for Skye as the floodgates, once opened, made way for a seemingly endless deluge of emotions. She cycled erratically amongst depression, fury, and moments of emotional saturation where it seemed like she had cried out every tear in her body and had nothing left but the energy to stare at the wall in a kind of daze.

On the positive side, her nightmares were becoming less frequent. And Simmons had all the data she could possibly want.

On day four, after an agonizing two-hour stretch of Skye sobbing her eyes out while everything in the Cage was pinned against the wall by the shock waves she was emitting, Hunter showed up with a pint of Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Therapy ice cream, a spoon, and a DVD of The Big Lebowski (which Simmons must have clued him in on).

Curled up on her cot with the ice cream and the movie, Skye really laughed for the first time since the Party House. The grief hurt like hell, but it was better than the denial. At least she could feel again. At least there were moments of relief, like this.

Hunter, watching her on the surveillance camera, smiled to himself. He'd developed a soft spot for this woman over the last four weeks - hard to avoid when he spent nearly every waking moment five days a week attending to her needs and watching her go through the tumult she was experiencing. It eased his heart to see her smiling.

God, sometimes he sucked at not getting attached.

"Hey."

A smile swept across his face at the sound of Bobbi's voice. But his pleasure at her presence was, as usual lately, tempered with guardedness. She was up to something - he'd been seeing the signs for weeks now, ever since San Juan.

The whole time they'd been together, really.

He swiveled his chair to face her, offering a welcoming smile. "Hey."

She smiled back, making her way over to him. Her arms were folded across her body as she leaned against the desk next to him, watching the screen. "Coulson's idea?" she guessed, nodding her head toward Skye and the ice cream.

"Mine, actually."

Bobbi arched a bemused eyebrow.

"Come on, Bob," Hunter protested. "The girl's going through hell. It's the least I can do."

Bobbi rolled her eyes, and an awkward silence settled over them.

"You know what I said the other day, about Coulson? This is the kind of thing I was talking about," Bobbi said quietly.

"I know," he replied with a hint of irritation, not taking his eyes off the screen.

Bobbi sighed. "When's the shift change?"

Hunter glanced up at the clock. "May should be here in about twenty minutes."

"Come find me after?" Bobbi murmured. Keeping her eyes on the screen, she placed her hand gently on the back of Hunter's neck, rubbing where she knew the knots would be.

He closed his eyes at her touch, then glanced up at her. "I'll be there."

* * * * * * *

On the fifth day, the haze of overwhelming emotion began to dissipate, and Skye started to find a shaky sense of equilibrium. She felt calmer, almost peaceful sometimes, with scattered waves of tears throughout the day instead of the constant flood that had nearly drowned her.

That afternoon, Coulson video-chatted, and they talked at length about the work Simmons was doing in the lab to sort out what was happening with Skye.

"I know that this all feels very disorienting and strange to you," Coulson acknowledged. "And it's true: we've never had to go through this with someone who's part of our team. But Skye, this is what we do - just like with Hannah, just like Donnie Gill. We may not have the resources we used to have, so it's taking a little bit longer. But we're going to figure this thing out."

Skye eyed him skeptically. "Things with Donnie Gill didn't work out so well."

Coulson's lips tightened. "SHIELD taught him to control his powers. Hydra brainwashed him," he reminded her. "No one's going to brainwash you. You aren't a weapon; you're a member of this team."

Coulson's assurance and optimism were contagious. Skye began to feel hopeful again that there might be life after the Cage. And after a week, Simmons had results she was ready to share.

Skye felt flutters of tentative excitement as Hunter established the FACE connection on the laptop in the lab. He retreated to the background, leaning against a cabinet, and Simmons and Coulson came close, taking up the bulk of the screen space.

"I'm very sorry it's taken so long to get as far as we have," Simmons began by apologizing. "It's just been a bit mad in here, what with analyzing the samples from all of the attacks..."

Skye twitched. " _All_ of the attacks?" she interrupted. "Wait a minute; I thought there were only two?" She looked back and forth amongst them. Coulson was tight-lipped, Hunter carefully neutral. Simmons was clearly dismayed, though doing a better job trying to hide it than she would have a year ago. "Are you telling me that there have been more while I've been - in the last week?"

Coulson looked resigned. "Two more," he confirmed. "Miami and Guatemala."

Skye swung wildly from incredulity to distress. "Why didn't you tell me? I should be helping track them down!"

"Skye," Coulson replied firmly, "my priority for you right now is getting you out of that Cage. I told you I didn't want you worrying about what's happening out here, and I meant it. Let's get you out, and then you can track _and_ chase them down to your heart's content."

Skye pressed her lips together stubbornly, tears stinging her eyes. But he was right.

"Fine," she conceded.

Coulson nodded to Simmons.

"Right," Simmons acknowledged, glancing at Skye apologetically. "Well, to begin with, we've been tracking the phenomena that Skye has been manifesting, and have essentially confirmed that she is periodically releasing vibrations of varying strengths, from very weak to incredibly powerful. Sometimes there is only one strong wave, but more frequently they come in clusters. They seem to emanate from her location and spread evenly in every direction."

Skye nodded. This much she had already figured out. She was mostly looking forward to learning how she could make them stop.

"Good to know," Coulson affirmed with more patience than Skye felt, folding his arms. "Go on."

"Between Fitz and myself, we believe that the earthquakes we experienced here at the Playground were actual earthquakes that were triggered by the emitted vibrations interacting with tectonic plates. The shaking at the Party House, however, was entirely the result of the vibrations."

Skye's eyes were wide. Interacting with tectonic plates? _Holy -_

"Now, on to test results." Simmons shuffled through a pile of papers. "We had talked about, but never actually did, perform a complete genome sequence on Skye after the GH-325. I thought now was a very appropriate time to do so."

Coulson nodded in agreement, and Skye bit her lip, fighting down a sudden wave of fear. She had no idea what she was about to hear.

"On the whole, Skye's genetic code is very similar to a typical human genome; however, there are a number of genetic markers, perhaps two or three dozen, which I have never encountered before. Several of them appear to be recent changes - I was also able to sequence DNA from a sample of her blood we had in storage from a physical exam prior to the incident, and a number of the genetic markers are present only in the more recent sample."

Skye blinked, her initial relief warring with confusion. "So, what you're saying is..."

Simmons finished her sentence. "Even before what happened in Puerto Rico, you had unique genetic characteristics. However, your exposure to the Obelisk and whatever was inside it seems to have permanently altered your genetic code even further."

Skye felt a little dizzy. Coulson, somehow, appeared to be utterly unfazed by this entire conversation.

A few of the pieces rattling around in Skye's brain fit together. "So the - the side effects I'm experiencing...?"

"Are most likely permanent," Simmons confirmed apologetically.

Skye nodded slowly. Okay. She had prepared herself for that much, anyway. But the slowly intensifying scream that had been building up inside her heart since Simmons first mentioned DNA now found its way out her lips as a whisper.

_"What am I?"_

Simmons paused before giving her a smile that was reassuring, though it looked a little strained. "Overall, your genetic code is largely consistent with the human genome, apart from a handful of alterations. In the absence of alternative identification, I would continue to consider yourself a somewhat modified human being."

That was less encouraging than Simmons probably meant for it to be, but Skye could roll with it. It was better than some other possibilities. "Okay. So how do I turn off the effects?"

"Well...it's fascinating, really..." Simmons began, shuffling through a sheaf of papers, her face beginning to glow with sciencey excitement. "The occurrences of the vibrations are certainly correlated both with spikes in your stress hormones and with strong emotions, but they're not always well-correlated." The blank looks on Coulson's and Skye's faces prompted her to elaborate. "In other words, the strength of the phenomenon is not always directly proportional to what's happening in your mind and body. You might emit a very strong shock wave in response to a moderately distressing thought, whereas a very distressing thought could actually produce weaker vibrations. The factors effecting the vibrations seem to be numerous and complex in their interrelation."

"On a practical level, what does that mean?" Coulson's eyebrows were furrowed. He looked concerned, which concerned Skye.

Simmons tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Unfortunately it means that, thus far, I have not been able to isolate a single factor or combination of factors that directly control or activate the vibrations. I cannot, therefore, manufacture a simple means of suppressing them. Anything we could try - medications or the like - would be extremely uncertain and subject to periodic failure, which I think we all agree would be too great a risk." She glanced around, noting the agreement in everyone's faces.

"I can and will continue to look for a physiologic solution; there are several other possibilities. There is also a different possibility, which I find hopeful: if the process is not entirely physiologic, that suggests that there is an element of will involved, which means we may be able to achieve a level of conscious control."

"What do you mean?" Skye said quickly, leaning toward the screen.

Simmons' reassuring smile seemed more genuine this time. "Well, if, as I suspect, you are currently exerting a level of subconscious control, then we will simply need to find a way to transfer that control from your subconscious to your conscious mind. Think of it like..." She paused thoughtfully for a moment. "Like toilet training a child. For an infant, urinating is not a conscious decision; it's an unconscious bodily function. Through the process of toilet training, the child becomes aware of his or her own bodily processes, and urination becomes a conscious action."

Coulson raised an eyebrow. Skye fought down the slightly hysterical impulse to giggle at the look on his face.

"It's like biofeedback," Hunter supplied from his post against the cabinet. Simmons jumped and Coulson glanced at him quickly, as if they'd both forgotten he was there. "Like learning to control your heart rate or blood pressure."

Simmons nodded enthusiastically. "Exactly. Except the techniques for learning those are well-established, and this would be more a matter of trial and error."

Skye suddenly felt a little punchy. "So, essentially what you're saying is, I have to potty train the side effects of my mutated genetic code."

Simmons scrunched up her face. "Something like that."

It would almost be funny, if it wasn't so surreal. And she was pretty sure it meant she was going to have to be in that damn Cage even longer.

Skye sighed.

* * * * * * *

Skye disconnected the transmission after discussing with Simmons what to expect in the next stage of testing. She moved from the chair to sit cross-legged on her cot, hands limp on her knees. That hadn't been the news she wanted to hear.

The little whisper of fear rose up from deep within her heart - _How long can they continue to spend all this time and energy on me, when there's so much else going on out there?_

Skye rested her head back against the wall, her eyes squeezing shut and her jaw setting. That was a stupid voice she wasn't going to listen to. She knew Coulson better than that.

_Beep_

Her eyes flew open.

_Incoming transmission from Agent Lance Hunter_

Skye's face softened into a small smile. Of course he could tell she was upset. She supposed he must have a PhD in her facial expressions by now, after keeping an eye on her all day, every day. The surveillance had stopped being weird after a while; it was just the way life was. It was almost kind of comforting now, after the way Hunter had been there for her over the last week.

It had started with his offer to listen if she needed to talk; then, every time she was reaching the end of her ability to tolerate the chaos of her emotions, he'd been there - on the laptop screen or at the door, with a quip to make her laugh, something encouraging to say, or occasionally dark chocolate (of which he apparently had a stash somewhere).

Skye was too grateful at first to be surprised by his thoughtfulness, but on the fourth or fifth day, her thoughts cleared enough to realize how out of character his behavior seemed for the snarky, seemingly untouchable former mercenary. That is, until she began remembering their conversations about Isabelle Hartley, Hunter's ridiculous and emotionally-driven decision to ICE them all and go after Carl Creel by himself, and the self-conscious way he'd laughed off his obvious inability to keep from getting attached. Apparently, Lance Hunter had a soft side. It was just deeply hidden beneath a layer of snark and bluster.

Skye was glad he had it. His kindness toward her in the rough patches had helped to sustain her more than she really knew how to express.

And here he was, reading her mind again.

She grabbed the laptop off the table, sat back down on the cot, and clicked _*ACCEPT*_. Hunter popped up on the screen. He was in the lounge, his feet up on the coffee table next to the laptop. Unsurprisingly, he even had a bottle of beer.

"Hey," she said, with a weak smile. "Are you supposed to be drinking on duty?"

"Hey, yourself," he replied with mock offense. "It's only one beer. I promise it won't slow my response times." He paused, studying her carefully. "How are you doing?"

"Crappy." Skye shrugged. "But you already knew that. Those results really weren't what I was hoping to hear."

"Yeah, I know." He sighed, setting the bottle down on the table, behind her range of sight. "It's not over though, right? Just a matter of time. Simmons still has some ideas."

Skye nodded, halfheartedly acknowledging his point.

They sat in silence for a moment.

"I just...I just hoped there'd be something easy she could do, you know?" Skye sighed, looking up toward the ceiling of the Cage. "Some shut-off switch for...all of this, that could make it go away. Some magic pill or something I could take. And then I could get the hell out of here -" she whacked the wall of the Cage - "and back into the field."

Hunter nodded. There wasn't an easy answer. "At least you're with SHIELD," he replied, trying to be reassuring. "I mean, if you're manifesting strange abilities, what better place to be, right? They're gonna figure it out eventually."

Skye seemed unconvinced, her face still glum.

Hunter decided to try changing the subject, hoping at least to occupy Skye's thoughts and keep her from obsessing about the expected delay. "How did you end up as a SHIELD agent, anyway? You didn't go to the Academy."

Skye recognized the distraction, but at the moment, she was thankful to be distracted. She shook her head, a wry smirk on her lips. "Nope. Coulson and - " Hunter noticed how she cut herself off. "Coulson brought me in, actually, for interrogation. I used to be part of a hacktivist organization, trying to change the world, and creating lots of trouble for SHIELD in the process." Skye made a face at Hunter's blank expression. "What?"

"A _what_ organization?"

"Hacktivist."

That didn't seem to help.

"You know, activists who hack - hacking activists - hacktivists? Accessing secure information and making it available to the world?"

Hunter nodded slowly, raising one eyebrow as it sank in. "Got it. Carry on."

Skye shot an amused look at him. "Anyway, they brought me in, which was exactly what I wanted, because I knew SHIELD had information about my parents." Her expression wavered briefly, but she powered through it. "I needed a way in so I could get access to the unredacted file. My secret came out before too long, but Coulson had a hunch about me, so he asked me to stay."

"So, wait." Hunter's forehead was crinkled, his tone skeptical. "You _infiltrated_ SHIELD, and Coulson asked you to join?"

Skye nodded. "Yup."

"He recruits the strangest people," Hunter observed reflectively, shaking his head.

"He has good instincts," Skye corrected him. "And he believes in people. He sees the good in them when no one else does."

Skye was puzzled by the expression that swept across Hunter's face. It was like a strange combination of epiphany, confusion, and resolve. She thought about asking him what was going on, but decided against it.

"So," she transitioned instead. "How'd you end up in this business?"

Hunter laughed and reached over to grab his beer, taking a drink before answering. "Joined the military right after school, the Navy. Got recruited into the Special Air Service a few years later." At Skye's look of confusion, he explained. "It's like Special Forces. Covert operations, intelligence, direct action when necessary. Very tough to get in. Kind of a big deal."

"And you were _recruited_ into it?" Skye repeated, looking a little impressed.

Hunter bobbed his eyebrows, downplaying it, then moved on. "Anyway, I was there for a number of years, until I met Bobbi while doing cross-training in North Carolina."

Skye arched an eyebrow in teasing interest.

Hunter rolled his eyes. "She was there for some SHIELD op, but I didn't know it at the time. Spies don't have a tendency to advertise their profession to military guys who hit on them on the pier."

Skye smirked.

"Anyway, you know how things went - we hit it off, got serious, I left the military to go freelance so we could be together more often. Then things with Bobbi fell apart, then SHIELD fell apart, my options evaporated, and now, here I am."

"That's kind of a sad story." Skye's eyes were compassionate.

Hunter shrugged and took another swig. "Could've been worse."

"At least things with Bobbi seem to be going well again," she observed hopefully.

Hunter's smile was less enthusiastic than Skye expected. She found herself wondering if there was something going on there that she didn't know about.

"Do you still feel like you're stuck at SHIELD?" she asked carefully.

Hunter stared off into space for a moment, thinking. "I dunno. Sometimes there are things I don't mind about it."

Skye smiled wryly. "Such glowing praise."

Hunter met her gaze with his own, his expression more earnest than Skye could remember seeing him before. "Why did you stay?"

Skye grew sober and thoughtful. "Well, I came from the world of idealistic free-information hackers and joined a covert spy organization. I thought I was going into the belly of the beast. But I was really surprised. Coulson was honest with me. He treated me like I had something to offer. And when I saw the work SHIELD was doing to protect people and got to know the team, I wanted to be part of it. They were more real and selfless about saving the world than the self-preserving jerks I worked with as a hacker. Well, most of them were." Nostalgia, grief, and bitterness wrestled on her face, and Hunter thought with a twinge of empathy of the Hydra boyfriend who used to be in Vault D. "From what I saw of the rest of SHIELD, not everyone was like that. I don't know that I could have stayed without Coulson being the one who found me. He took a chance on me, when it didn't make sense. I'm glad he did."

"And I'm sure he hasn't regretted it," Hunter observed honestly. Coulson's affection for Skye was obvious to anyone with eyes.

Skye blinked back the tears that sprang up at his words. She needed to hear that.

They talked for a while longer, about the Rising Tide and Hunter's military exploits, until it was nearly time for the shift change to Agent May. Skye was looking forward to picking her brain about discipline and control of unconscious body processes. If anyone had insight into that kind of thing, it would be Agent Melinda May.


	13. Schism

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been terrible about uploading chapters...so here are the next five all at once. :)

By the time Hunter and Agent May switched off, Skye was feeling a little better about her prognosis. Okay, so it meant more time in the Cage, but if there was a chance of achieving conscious control of whatever this was, that meant something to _do_ again - something besides staring at the walls and brooding and drawing blood and journaling and watching the "100 all-time best comedy movies", which Hunter had found on some list online and kept renting for her.

When May checked in, Skye explained to her the substance of the discussion with Simmons and Coulson that afternoon.

"I thought that, if anyone had mastery of controlling subconscious functions, it would be you," she concluded.

A tiny, pleased smile took up residence on May's lips. "Yes, I think I can help with that," she replied, looking thoughtful. "Give me a few minutes."

She disappeared from view, and about fifteen minutes later there was a knock on the door. "Come in," Skye called, and May came in with a bundle of wires and monitors and electrodes. Skye bristled almost unconsciously at first, but when she realized this was biofeedback equipment, her reticence turned to anticipation.

"Achieving control over subconscious processes is all about awareness," May explained, as she began placing the electrodes against Skye's skin. "Once you're aware of the unconscious process, you can begin to manipulate it." She paused, pressing her lips together and looking Skye over appraisingly. "Obviously, learning to control your abilities won't be quite so straightforward; but we can start with this to get you used to the transition from subconscious to conscious."

Skye smiled. "Sounds good to me."

May smiled back, placing a reassuring hand on Skye's shoulder. In May-speak, that was as good as a hug. "We started this process already, when we were working on keeping your heart rate steady. We'll just take it a little further today. This equipment will facilitate gaining control over your blood pressure and surface temperature. Core temperature control requires a deep meditation technique, which I can teach you next time. It comes in very handy when you're stranded for hours on the tundra waiting for an extraction." May rolled her eyes expressively, and Skye made a mental note to ask about that story some time.

May finished setting up the equipment and left the Cage, reappearing on Skye's laptop screen in a few minutes.

An hour and a half later, Skye was able to raise and lower the surface temperature of each hand on command, and even separately, and felt well on her way toward having good control over her blood pressure. The whole "developing awareness of her subconscious bodily functions" thing was beginning to make more sense.

"Very good work," May pronounced, looking Skye over approvingly.

"I'm a fast learner," Skye responded with a grin, and May tilted her head in tacit agreement.

Hopefully it would be as easy to learn control over the vibrations.

* * * * * * *

On the other side of the base, Lance Hunter was sprawled across his bed with a bottle of beer, thinking idly of the pile of clean laundry he probably ought to put away before he ended up just fishing semi-wrinkled T-shirts out of it for the next week.

He had just grudgingly stood up to open a drawer when he heard a familiar knock on the door frame and turned to see Bobbi standing in the open doorway.

His lips curved into a smile. "Hey, Bob," he said affectionately, taking the few steps toward her and sliding his arms around her waist before pressing a kiss to her lips.

"Hey, Hunter," she replied quietly, untangling herself from his arms and moving over to sit on the edge of the bed. The stiffness to her movements clued him in that something was wrong. But she was smiling up at him, and he tried to quiet his inner voice of suspicion.

"What are you up to?" she asked casually.

"Laundry," he said with a shrug, nodding toward the clean pile and the open drawer.

Bobbi arched an eyebrow, smirking. "Impressive."

He rolled his eyes at her with a grin.

They looked at each other for a moment, and then Bobbi's eyes shifted away from his face. Hunter tensed, recognizing the signs.

Here it came.

"Hunter, there's something I'm not telling you."

He closed his eyes briefly. There it was.

"I know there is, Bob," he replied quietly. "I'm not stupid."

Bobbi looked chastened, her eyes returning to his. "I never said you were," she murmured softly.

His reaction was calmer than he expected. "But you think I wouldn't notice the conversations that stop when I come in the room? The secret thumb drive? The fact that you'd rather share a room with Agent May than with me?" She was quiet, just fixed on him with those devastating eyes. "I'm not entirely sure what kind of covert operations you thought I was doing before we met, Bob."

Her silence felt like an admission of guilt.

Hunter rubbed his hands through his hair, a physical sign of agitation he didn't feel. Inside, everything was numb, resigned. "I can't live this way, Bobbi."

She looked down and spoke so quietly he could hardly hear her. "I know you can't."

He raised his eyebrows expectantly, though he knew it was an empty expectation. "So are you going to tell me?"

She looked up at him, her expression remorseful, but adamant. "I can't do that."

Her words had the finality of shotgun shells dropping to the floor.

Hunter turned back to his laundry. "Then I guess we're done here." His voice sounded stiff.

He had to remind himself that this was really happening - not that them breaking it off was anything new. They'd done it a half-dozen times before. But it was dissolving quietly this time, without any explosions going off, literal or figurative. It felt measured, conscious - like a flame burning out, rather than a pressurized container self-destructing in the heat of a furnace.

Maybe that meant it was real this time.

The thought had him tasting bile. But he wasn't going to back down.

"Just like that?"

There came the flare of anger he'd expected five minutes earlier.

"'Just like' -" He whirled around. "Bobbi, how many times has it been now? Five? Six? You _know_ I keep wanting to make this work, but I can't make it work if you won't be honest with me."

"And sometimes there are things I just can't be honest about. You know that." Her voice wavered slightly, but he could no more trust that than he could the pleading look in her eyes. He'd seen her manufacture both on command when it suited her.

"It's not just that." He gritted his teeth, trying to keep it together. Part of him wanted to get into it, to let this escalate into a screaming fight and then solve it the way they always did, but that resigned, unnaturally calm place in his mind was prevailing. "You can tell me to my face that you're not playing me, and I'll never be able to believe it. And I won't be a pawn, Bobbi - not yours, not anyone else's."

She absorbed it quietly, her eyes still locked on his, acceptance washing over her face. After a moment, she got up to leave, but she stopped just inside the door, turning partway back toward him.

"When everything goes down, I just want you to know that it had nothing to do with you."

His response was very dry. "Well, that'll be a comfort." He folded his arms and gazed at her as she stood there, his genuine affection for her welling up in concern. Quietly he said, "What are you playing at, Bobbi?"

"I can't tell you," she repeated firmly. "But you know I wouldn't tell you this much if it was something nefarious." She turned those pleading eyes back on him, but he was unmoved.

"Unless you wanted me to think that it wasn't."

Bobbi pressed her lips together, visibly frustrated. "SHIELD isn't the same any more, Hunter. Coulson's not the kind of leader that Fury was. I don't know that he's capable of handling the threat that is out there."

"So you're gonna what? Go handle the threat?" His voice was thick with sarcasm.

She didn't rise to it. "Someone has to." She turned back toward him, studying his face intently. "Do you remember what I said the other day about Coulson? How he's too emotionally invested, in the way he's handling Skye?" Hunter nodded in acknowledgment. "Hydra would have her sedated and intubated until they figured out her biochemistry, and then they'd brainwash her and train her to weaponize it. They wouldn't be expending resources and manpower making sure she's comfortable."

Hunter felt his hackles rise. "And what - you'd rather SHIELD operate like Hydra?" That was a bit much, even for Bobbi.

She shook her head, her expression serious. "That's not what I'm saying. But this is the tip of the iceberg with Coulson. 'Zero acceptable losses', destroying weapons that could give us an edge over Hydra - he has too many scruples. Fury never operated this way."

"I think you and I disagree on what constitutes too many scruples, Bob."

Bobbi rolled her eyes at him. "Think what you want, Hunter, but too much idealism is a weakness, and Coulson's got it in spades. Hydra will exploit it. A SHIELD that won't do the ugly things when necessary is always going to lose to a Hydra that will."

"Fury did the ugly things," he reminded her. "Look at how that turned out. I'm not so sure I mind being part of an organization that keeps its nose clean."

Bobbi's expression softened, her eyes tracing the lines of his face with affection, tinged with regret. "I know. That's why you joined the RAF, not MI6. You like black and white." Her voice was gentle, but Hunter felt her observation for the barb that it was.

"At least then I know who's lying to me," he shot back. He took a step away from her, rubbing the back of his neck. "Why are you telling me all this, if you're not going to tell me what you're doing?"

Bobbi stopped short, searching his eyes for a long moment before she answered. "I don't want you to die out there," she said quietly.

God, he wanted to throw it all out the window, to walk over there and kiss her and forget this conversation ever happened.

But he knew they'd just be having it again six months from now.

"You either, all right?" he returned softly.

Bobbi nodded, pressing her lips together as though disappointed, and turned and walked out.

* * * * * * *

Skye was surprised when Hunter FACE'd her at 0720 the next morning. It was supposed to be Simmons' day.

"Something weird's going on," he explained unceremoniously, downing the last of a cup of coffee. "Simmons shoved the laptop at me half an hour ago and ran off to the lab. Now Coulson's called morning briefing early and he wants you in it, and people are running around like crazy. I have no idea what the hell's happening."

Skye felt her muscles tense up. If Coulson hadn't brought her in on two more ambushes, but he was bringing her in on whatever this was, it had to be serious.

Hunter half-jogged her through the hallways and set the laptop down on the table so that Skye could see him, Fitz, and Coulson. She had caught May in the corner of the screen when they first came in, and Simmons and Koenig walked in just before Coulson started to speak. Skye gathered that whatever was happening was too urgent to wait for Bobbi and Mack.

"We have a situation," Coulson began bluntly. "Our first clue was when our hangar staff discovered this morning that the quinjet was missing. Then we began receiving reports from other SHIELD installations of missing equipment and personnel." He glanced around, giving that much information a moment to sink in.

"Since then, we've confirmed the absence of Agents Morse and Mackenzie, a half-dozen analysts, four scientists, and every security team that was on duty last night. Our weapons inventory at the Playground has been reduced by approximately half, and there's an electronic record of our entire system, including all accessible restricted files, being backed up onto a separate drive around 0230. All relevant security camera footage has been deleted."

Skye glanced, shocked, at Hunter. The look on his face was unreadable, but she saw him close his eyes briefly as Coulson finished explaining the situation.

_Did he know?_

"I've completed a very cursory inventory of the lab," Simmons added breathlessly from somewhere behind the laptop, "and we are definitely also missing lab equipment and supplies as well as medical supplies and medications."

"Sir," Fitz broke in, and Coulson nodded to him. Fitz's eyes were red-rimmed, and Skye swallowed hard at the shell-shocked look on his face. He had already experienced his share of betrayal with Ward - now Mack, too?

"Sir, there - there's more," he said falteringly. "A number of the pieces of - of tech we acquired from Hydra are also, uh, missing; particularly, several of the - the more, uh, the weapons..." He looked helplessly toward Simmons.

"The more powerful weapons," she continued smoothly, her voice wavering only a little, "which we had judged too dangerous to put into circulation."

Fitz nodded gratefully at her.

Skye's eyes were stinging. Fitz's speech was worse than she had heard in months.

"Mack helped you study and inventory the tech," Coulson observed flatly. It was a statement, not a question.

"Yes." Fitz's jaw was working in an attempt to keep his composure.

Coulson pinched the bridge of his nose, and it suddenly struck Skye that he looked more tense than he had since he was battling with compulsively carving alien symbols. "We're not entirely sure what we're dealing with here, but it seems to be SHIELD-wide," he admitted, and a strained silence filled the room.

May's calm voice broke through it. "If they wanted to cripple us, they would have taken everything. If they were Hydra, they could have killed us while we slept."

Coulson turned toward her, seeming to draw strength from the contact. "True enough," he acknowledged.

"She's not Hydra," Hunter broke in matter-of-factly. "I may not always know what Bobbi's thinking, but I've known her long enough to know that when you cut her, she bleeds SHIELD. It's just -" He seemed to cut himself off.

Coulson looked at him sharply. "You don't seem particularly surprised by this development, _Agent_ Hunter -" Skye caught his slight emphasis on _Agent_ \- "which strikes me as either odd or suspicious, especially in light of the nature of your relationship with Agent Morse."

Hunter raised his eyebrows, nodding slightly in acknowledgement. "I didn't know this was coming, but I'm not surprised."

Coulson's jaw was set, his eyes steely and guarded. "Would you care to explain yourself?"

Hunter broke eye contact, glancing away, then cautiously back at Coulson. "I'd prefer to do that in private, _sir_ ," he replied, the light stress on the honorific affirming Coulson's position.

The two men locked eyes for a moment, Coulson's gaze piercing, Hunter deferential but firm.

Skye realized she was holding her breath.

"Excuse me, Director?" Koenig spoke up hesitantly. "I know this isn't exactly a convenient time, but we've just had a visual of Raina pop up on a security camera in Florida."

Coulson paused for a beat, assimilating the new information. Skye barely noticed the flicker of relief that crossed Hunter's face, consumed as she was by her own suddenly spinning thoughts.

Raina had managed to inactivate or cut out the tracker after San Juan; by the time they'd returned to the Playground, her signal had disappeared, and she had eluded them ever since, even though they had been sweeping every available source for any sign of her. Coulson had initially wanted her for the knowledge of Hydra she had gleaned from working with Whitehall. But now it occurred to Skye, with a shock like icy water, that Raina might also be a source of information about whatever was happening with her. And a more appealing source than crazy Cal - whom Skye honestly hoped never to see again as long as she lived. The image of him beating Coulson into a bloody mess still held too much fresh horror.

While Skye had been thinking, so had Coulson. "May, Hunter, and I will go retrieve her," he said grimly. "Wheels up in fifteen. Fitz and Simmons, I want you inventorying what's left of our supplies, and Koenig, I want full reports of what's missing and what we still have from all of our bases by the time I get back."

"Coulson," Skye interrupted, but he cut her off.

"That's all for the time being," he concluded decisively. "We have to get moving. Simmons, take Skye with you."

The screen view shifted as Simmons picked up the laptop, but Skye just caught the flinty look in Coulson's eye as he confronted Hunter.

"I'm trusting you because I need you right now. Don't make me regret it," she heard him say, the cool threat more than implied in his voice.

Hunter nodded crisply, but Skye didn't hear whether he responded, as Simmons took the laptop out into the hallway toward the lab.

Skye disconnected the transmission. Her thoughts were racing. With the quinjet gone, they were going to have to take the Bus. She would be going along anyway.

With a few keystrokes, she hacked into the huge screen behind Coulson in the briefing room. When the image of the room flickered into view, Coulson jumped at the sight of her face appearing, four feet tall, on the wall next to him. He was alone in the room now.

"Coulson," Skye began imploringly, without prologue, "you shouldn't be going. You need to be here. SHIELD needs you. If we can get me two more monitors, I can mirror the Command Center into the Cage and run the back end for May and Hunter from here. You can stay at the Playground and deal with the fallout from whatever the hell Bobbi's doing."

Coulson hesitated.

"Come on," Skye pressed. "I can do sat surveillance, cameras, schematics, comms, everything we need." She paused, her heart feeling like it was going to explode. "Please," she said, her voice weakening as she searched his eyes, seeing the burden he was carrying. "Please let me do something."

Coulson's resistance began to crumble. "Fine," he said tightly, and the strain in his face seemed to ease a little, displaced by grudging relief and, Skye thought, a hint of pride.

She smiled weakly at him.

"Thank you," Coulson said, his voice soft, and for a moment he stopped being the always-composed, invincible, inscrutable Director Coulson and was just AC.

They locked eyes in mutual empathy, each recognizing the weight of what the other was carrying. "Thank _you_ ," Skye whispered.


	14. Retrieval

Connecting two new monitors to her laptop should have been an easy task, but Skye found her fingers fumbling with the cords. Her concentration was shaken by the presence, in the Cage, of a certain leather-jacket-clad fellow agent who was slumped on the fold-down seat, leaning his head back against the wall with his eyes closed.

When May and Hunter had brought the monitors in, May had informed Skye that Hunter would be remaining there until after May had gotten the Bus into the air. Apparently Coulson trusted him enough - or needed him desperately enough - to send him after Raina, but not enough to allow him free rein on the Bus while May was occupied with taking off and landing.

Agent May had slipped Skye an ICER, just in case, which now lay on the table next to her laptop. Skye could hardly look at it.

Her gaze flickered over to Hunter for what felt like the millionth time in the last five minutes as she tried to sort through the confusion in her heart and mind.

Watching constantly for signs of betrayal was a habit she had let die a few months after Providence. You could only expect people to turn on you at any moment for so long before you became a stark raving paranoid psychopath. Bobbi and Mack's apparent defection was resurrecting all those old fears, sending tingles of alarm through her body. But somehow she just couldn't make her brain reconcile the alarm with the guy who'd been bringing her smoothies and dorky comedies and generally saving her sanity for the last four weeks.

Of course, she hadn't been able, at first, to reconcile Ward's treachery with what she thought she knew of him. She couldn't put nearly as much faith in her intuition as she used to. Not in this world.

Skye took a slow, deliberate breath, willing her heart rate to stabilize.

_If he was in on Bobbi's plan, I can't trust him. Our friendship could have been just a cover, everything he's done just a show to win our confidence. It may not be a body in the rafters this time, but it's a betrayal._

Skye's stomach churned as the image of Eric Koenig's pale face flashed into her mind's eye. She shoved it away, blinking back tears.

_But if he didn't know, then he just got betrayed more deeply than any of us._

The thought made her heart ache for him.

The tug of war between empathy and suspicion was making her dizzy.

Hunter rubbed his face with both hands, then dragged his hands down his face, leaning forward to rest his chin on his fists. "This place looks bigger from the inside," he cracked feebly, surveying the interior of the Cage.

Skye's smile was more forced than genuine. "Yeah, well, it starts to feel pretty small after a while."

He nodded and fell silent.

Skye's instinctive compassion momentarily overwhelmed her guardedness. "How are you holding up?" she asked quietly.

"Crappy," he answered dryly. "But you already knew that." His eyes met hers, and she saw in them a muddle of pain and firm resolve.

If he wasn't ripped up over this, he was a good actor.

Hunter's gaze flicked briefly to the ICER on the table before returning to her. Skye was overcome by a surge of self-conscious guilt, though it was still tempered with wariness. She knitted her eyebrows together, torn between apologizing for and justifying the presence of the sidearm.

Her ambivalence must have been clear. "It's okay," Hunter sighed with resignation. "I understand how all of this looks."

Bad. It looked bad. Skye broke eye contact, looking away as her heart twisted painfully. She just couldn't handle any more betrayal, any more loss, any more of the people she trusted and _needed_ being exposed as false, as people against whom she had to defend herself. Somehow, the uncertainty of this situation made it even worse.

She couldn't keep herself from asking. She needed to know what he would say, even if she couldn't fully trust the answer.

"Did you know?" She watched him closely, reading his reaction with a critical eye.

"No." Hunter met her gaze frankly, giving her no sign that he was being evasive. "She never brought me in on her plans."

Skye really wanted to believe him.

The low rumble of the engines started up, and May's voice came over the loudspeaker. "Prepare for takeoff."

Hunter scooted to one side of the fold-down seat and nodded toward the space next to him. Skye swallowed hard, palming the ICER and coming over to join him, and they both buckled in. Skye's tight grip on the pistol, held out of Hunter's reach, felt like she was holding on for dear life.

She shot a sidelong glance at him. He had his elbows on his knees again, face buried in his hands, rubbing his temples with both thumbs.

"Were you two still together?" she asked quietly.

His reply was muffled by his hands. "Until last night."

Skye closed her eyes against the bitterness in his voice. Almost without thinking, she lifted her free hand and placed it on his back, rubbing gently to comfort him.

"I'm sorry," she murmured.

Hunter looked over at her with surprise, eyebrows lifting. "You're not assuming the worst of me?"

Skye shook her head, just barely. "I don't know," she replied honestly. "But if the worst isn't true, then it sucks to be you right now."

Hunter let out a short, bitter laugh. "Yeah."

They sat there in silence as the Bus reached altitude and leveled out. After a few minutes, they heard the _beep, beep, beep, beep, beep - scrape_ of the door unlocking, and Agent May came in.

She quickly took in the scene - the two of them sitting on the fold-down seat, Skye's comforting hand on Hunter's back, her other hand still clutching the ICER. "Come on," May said curtly, but not unkindly, to Hunter.

Hunter unbuckled and stood up, and Skye wasn't far behind. She handed the ICER to Agent May, who studied her thoughtfully for a moment before giving her an approving nod. Skye exchanged a quick, sympathetic glance with Hunter before turning back to her computer setup.

It was time to get to work.

* * * * * * *

"Ok, here's what we know," Skye began matter-of-factly, pulling up aerial surveillance on her second screen and, by extension, the screen in the Command Center. "Raina popped up on the security camera in the lobby of a cheap motel in Florida at about 0700 local time. She seems to have checked in and hasn't been seen coming through the lobby since. Satellite surveillance doesn't show anyone leaving out the back or side doors, so we're assuming she's still in there."

Skye paused and had to hold in a wry grin. May and Hunter were standing side by side in the Command Center with their arms crossed, like SHIELD agent bookends. They hadn't seemed to notice their identical postures.

A twinge of anxiety passed through her. She hoped Hunter's status as a SHIELD agent wouldn't be changing when they returned to base.

May's question brought her back to the business at hand. "Can we see the security camera footage?"

"Absolutely." Skye queued it up on her third monitor, and the footage popped up on the Command Center screen next to the live feed from the Cage. "So, here's the lobby - and that's her coming in."

They saw a figure, swathed almost head to toe in dark fabric, enter through the front door and approach the broad front desk.

"The woman in the head scarf and veil?" Hunter asked, perplexed.

"Yes," Skye affirmed. "For reasons that will become obvious in just a moment. See, she's checking in..."

They watched as Raina, with gloved hands, exchanged cash for a room key, then nodded to the hotel staff and walked over closer to the security camera. With her back to the desk, she briefly removed the veil from her face, glancing up at the camera through her lashes, before replacing the veil and disappearing down the hallway.

Skye heard a sharp intake of breath from Hunter as Raina's face was revealed. "Bloody hell," he murmured quietly. "Mack wasn't kidding."

May's eyes were a little wider than usual, but her expression was as unruffled as ever.

Skye pursed her lips in agreement. "She's definitely different from what she used to be." Skye shivered, and a faint, brief rattling sound accompanied the release of vibrations. Raina wasn't the only one.

"Do we know anything about her transformation?" May inquired, watching the footage shrewdly as it played over again. Her eyebrows were furrowed.

Skye shook her head. "Other than the obvious, no. And Fitz and Simmons wanted to make sure we knew that we could be walking into a situation that's more dangerous than we expect."

"Great," Hunter muttered under his breath, wincing apologetically when May shot him a disapproving glare. Clearly, he was trying to be on his best behavior. He nodded toward the screen, where the security footage was still playing on loop. "That whole removing-the-veil-and-glancing-up act certainly looks deliberate, doesn't it? As if she wants to be found."

May frowned. "It definitely looks that way."

"Maybe she's in trouble?" Skye theorized.

"Maybe she's signaling Hydra," Hunter countered grimly. "Surely we're not the only ones hacking closed-circuit security cameras looking for her."

May pressed her lips together solemnly. "All right," she summarized after a moment. "We'll need one agent inside and one outside, in case she tries to bolt. We'll both go in with ICERs hot, and I'll have the M&P as a backup in case a lethal option becomes necessary." Her eyes lingered meaningfully on Hunter for a moment, conveying clearly that Raina wasn't the only threat she was considering.

Hunter absorbed the implication dispassionately. "Are we going in with body cameras?" he asked lightly.

May nodded.

"Makes sense," Hunter said with a shrug. "Skye can quarterback everything that way." They could keep an eye on him that way, too.

"I'm going to want a camera up high," Skye added, pulling up the overhead image of the motel with a few keystrokes. "There's a tall building across the street with a good view of the back and side exits."

"Done," May said crisply. "One of us will need to be in the empty lot behind the building," she said, looking at Hunter. "The other will need a good story."

"I've got a good story," Hunter murmured, fumbling in his jacket pocket and pulling out a silver-colored wedding band.

Skye gasped quietly and bit her lip, trying to hide her reaction as her eyes flew empathetically to his. _He keeps his wedding ring in his jacket pocket?_

Hunter glanced up at her and brushed it off. "It comes in handy sometimes," he said offhandedly.

* * * * * * *

Skye heard the crunching of gravel underfoot as Hunter trod through the parking lot toward the motel.

"This place is a dive," he assessed, and Skye, viewing the façade through his camera, agreed.

"It's a strategic location," May's voice crackled through the comms. "Edge of town, deserted neighborhood, inexpensive." Her camera feed showed that she had almost finished descending the stairs in the adjacent building from placing the high camera. "Probably disreputable, so nobody's asking questions."

"Well, I'm gonna go ask questions," Hunter muttered.

"There are two floors, sixteen rooms in all," Skye informed him quietly. "We just need a room number and we can work from there."

"I'm in position across the street," May checked in.

"Guess that means I'm up." Hunter's camera began drawing closer to the front door of the dilapidated establishment. Skye was as always impressed with the camera's image resolution: she could clearly see the paint chipping off the motel's siding.

The door creaked as Hunter opened it, and his camera took a moment to adjust to the dim lighting inside. Skye glanced briefly at her other monitor, where Hunter was entering the frame on the live security camera feed.

Behind the front desk, a shortish, rotund man with a scruffy dark beard and heavy eyebrows was squinting at Hunter. The former merc crossed the small lobby with confident steps.

"Hello there, mate," he opened amiably, resting one hand on the countertop so that his ring was in full view. "Rick, is it? Look, my wife and I had a terrible argument, and she walked out on me, and I'm trying to find her so I can make it up to her. One of her friends called me this morning and said she had got a room here. She's about yea tall, gorgeous hazel eyes, very traditional - usually wears a headscarf and veil in public."

The man behind the counter eyed Hunter skeptically.

Hunter had a great fake self-deprecating laugh. "I know - odd couple, right?" He paused for a beat. "But I miss her like hell, and I really would love it if you could help me find her."

The man frowned sullenly, furrowing those heavy eyebrows. "I can't tell you anything. Confidentiality."

"I get it, I get it," Hunter replied mildly. "What if I were to offer to make it worth your while?" He flashed a couple of hundred-dollar bills. Where he'd gotten them, Skye had no idea.

Rick's eyes nearly bulged out of his head. He eyed Hunter suspiciously, then reached out to take the money. "Room 105."

Hunter sounded genuinely pleased. "Thanks, mate."

"105 is the northwest corner of the ground floor, May," Skye hissed. "You should be able to cover the windows and the building's back door at the same time."

"Convenient," May said dryly, and Skye watched her move across the street and into a clump of bushes. Leaves obscured Skye's view. "I'm in position."

"A bit too convenient, if you ask me," Hunter murmured under his breath, making his way down the hall. Skye saw him pull out his ICER once he was out of eyeshot of the lobby.

The hallway was windowless, dimly lit, and deserted. Cautiously, Hunter approached the door marked 105.

"I'll try to smoke her out," he said quietly, and rapped gently on the door. "Housekeeping!" he called out, in a hideous imitation of a southern accent.

"Subtle," Skye muttered.

"She knows my voice," he whispered, as close to a whine as a whisper could be. "I had to do something different."

They all waited. There was no answer at the door.

"No movement outside," May reported.

"Nothing from overhead," confirmed Skye.

"I'm going in," Hunter informed them. Skye watched as he stashed his ICER, pulled out a couple of tools, and quietly jimmied the lock. The door just clicked open as he got the ICER back into his hands.

At first, Skye saw nothing but an empty room. Hunter pushed the door shut behind him and cleared the corners and the bathroom before manually tilting the camera down toward the floor.

Skye saw a ragged hole cut through the carpet, floor, and subfloor, extending down into darkness.

"I'd say she knew we were coming," Hunter observed ironically.

"May, there's a hole in the floor and an empty room," Skye reported.

"All the way to the sewer," Hunter clarified, pointing his gun and flashlight down the hole.

Skye immediately began pulling up the plan of the city's sewer system to find where that tunnel emptied out. She was too absorbed with that to watch as Hunter examined the rest of the room.

"Skye," she heard him say quietly.

Her gaze flicked over to his camera feed, and her breath caught.

"I'd say she knew we were coming," Hunter repeated.

Propped up on the bathroom counter was a folded piece of paper with a single word written in beautiful, curving penmanship on the front:

_Skye_


	15. The Interrogation Room

Skye sat numbly on the edge of her cot, the Bus's engines a dull roar in the background of her consciousness as she turned the folded piece of paper over and over again in her hands.

_Skye_ , it had said on the front, and she hadn't known what to make of it at first, except that Raina had clearly expected SHIELD to come. Then Hunter had unfolded the paper experimentally, and through his camera she'd caught a glimpse of more writing on the inside. Hunter had had the decency to fold it back up quickly, murmuring, "I'll let you have the first look at this."

The heavy thudding of her heart, arising from a mixture of trepidation and curiosity, had made her fingers tremble on the keys as she tried to figure out the maze of the sewer system.

It was hopeless, though, from where they were, with the resources they had on the Bus. There were too many possible routes Raina could have taken, too many branches off the main lines of the sewer. They would need to comb satellite surveillance of every possible outlet from the time they'd seen her on the surveillance video until...well, until they found her. That could be managed much better by the team of analysts who were still at the Playground than by Skye all by her lonesome.

So they had cleared the rest of the hotel as best they could without the staff getting wise, left the aerial camera in place, and gotten back on the Bus to head home. When Hunter had come in for takeoff, he'd handed Raina's note to Skye.

Over and over she now turned it in her hands, as though the motion would help her make sense of it. With a sigh, she unfolded it again, her eyes tracing over the words she had already memorized after reading them the first ten times.

_Skye,_

_I know you've changed, and I'm sure you must be full of questions. I know where to find the answers you're seeking._

_You belong with your own people, Skye: those who understand this incredible gift you've been given. SHIELD will never understand you now. You've transcended them; you are beyond their comprehension. But come with us, and you'll discover your family, your identity, your destiny._

_You see how easy it was to find me, when I made myself known. Make yourself known, Skye, and they will find you._

_Raina_

* * * * * * *

May appeared in the doorway after the Bus touched down. She nodded crisply at Hunter, who stood up from the fold-down seat, casting a backward glance at Skye before walking out the Cage. They hadn't spoken on the way back, wrapped up in her thoughts as she was.

Skye lifted her eyes from the note in her hands to Agent May, whose expression bore the faint softness that signified concern for her protégée.

"Coulson should probably have this," Skye said, holding the note out to May.

May didn't move to take it, but looked at her with compassionate eyes. "I'll have him come see you after he's finished with Hunter," she said quietly.

Skye took a deep breath to subdue the dismay that shot through her at May's words. "What are they going to do?"

May pressed her lips together grimly. "Coulson and Koenig are going to figure out how much he knew and whether he can still be trusted."

Skye nodded, suddenly feeling weak. The emotional strain of the day was taking its toll.

"Are you holding up okay?" May asked gently.

"Yeah," Skye lied. "I'm fine."

May studied her with a piercing gaze, but let it go. "Simmons and I will be keeping an eye on you in between inventory and everything else. Let us know if you need anything."

Skye nodded.

"You did well today," the older agent added softly. "It was good to have you back in the field."

Skye smiled. "It was good to be there." _Or at least close to it._

May smiled faintly and closed the door.

Skye slumped back against the wall, drawing a heavy breath. Her emotions, closer to the surface now since her breakdown, were beginning to feel overwhelming again, like a cacophony of insistent voices all vying for her attention. She felt pulled so strongly in a hundred directions that something was bound to snap.

And abruptly it did. Almost without thinking, Skye leapt up, crossed the room to her laptop, and began pulling up security camera feeds. She had to see with her own eyes whether Lance Hunter was a traitor. At least then some of her uncertainty would be resolved.

Somewhere in her subconscious, a little voice reminded her that she probably shouldn't be spying on the Director as he questioned a possible turncoat. But her native disdain for convention and her compulsive need for answers won out.

Skye cycled rapidly through hallway security cameras until she located Koenig, Coulson, and Hunter in an obscure hallway that she didn't think she'd ever been down. The men took a left turn down another hall, and Skye quickly cycled through the cameras until she located them again. In this way, she tracked them until they entered a room which - Skye could just barely make out after zooming in the camera - bore the number 424. She searched the directory and discovered one camera labeled _424 - Interrogation Room_.

_Interrogation Room?_ That wasn't the interrogation room. They had another space for conducting interrogations, the one Bobbi had used with Bakshi.

But it made more sense once Skye pulled up the video feed. There, next to Koenig, who was gesturing grandiosely with both hands, was a familiar machine, which Skye had thought they'd left behind forever at Providence. She still remembered sitting on that padded seat, cold metal and weird sensors around her head and hands, her palms sweating as she tried desperately not to say anything that might be taken as subversive.

It made sense that Fury would have had more than one made.

_Ahh. "Interrogation Room" makes more sense now._

Skye noticed a small microphone adjacent to the readout screens. Apparently, they were recording this session. It was an easy task to find the stream and pull it up, and Hunter's voice filled the Cage, synched nicely with the video.

"A lie detector?" he was asking, as he glanced skeptically from Koenig to Coulson. "You do realize I know how to beat a polygraph, right?"

Koenig rubbed his hands together in what seemed to approach glee. "Not just any lie detector," he corrected. "This is _the_ lie detector, Agent Hunter. This baby measures galvanic skin response, oxygen consumption, microexpressions, biofeedback, brain waves, pupil dilation, voice biometrics - 96 variables in all. Fury designed this himself. He wanted a lie detector _Romanoff_ couldn't beat."

Skye raised an eyebrow. That speech sounded familiar.

Coulson was peering at Koenig with a peculiar expression on his face. "Did you...rehearse that?"

Koenig blinked at him. "No. Why?"

Coulson blinked back, studying Koenig as if something had just occurred to him.

Hunter raised an eyebrow, glancing blankly back and forth between the two men. He shrugged and broke the silence. "All right, then. Let's get to it." He bent down and began to untie his shoes, and Coulson and Koenig turned to blink at him instead of at one another.

Hunter glanced up, noticing their bemused expressions. "Look, I know how this works," he explained shortly. "I want you to be confident I'm not pulling any tricks." He pulled off his shoes and socks. "No thumbtacks in my shoes, nothing under my fingernails. Go on, take a look." He extended his hands toward Koenig, who glanced at Coulson before inspecting them.

Hunter waited patiently, then nodded toward the lie detector. "I'm assuming that thing reads jaw movements, so you know I'm not biting my tongue to throw off the readings."

Koenig arched an incredulous eyebrow at him. "Of course."

Hunter had a small grin. "Good. Then let's get started."

* * * * * * *

"Full name?"

"Lance Hunter."

"Eye color?"

"Brown."

_Dark brown_ , Skye thought absently.

"Please list your immediate family."

"Mum; one sister."

"Have you ever been married?"

Hunter narrowed his eyes at Koenig sardonically. "Yes. Once."

"What's the difference between an egg and a rock?"

Hunter's forehead crinkled in thought. "An egg is fragile; a rock isn't."

"You wash up on a deserted island alone. Sitting on the sand is a box. What is in that box?"

"Is the island tropical?"

"Just say the first answer that comes into your mind. What is in that box?"

"Sunscreen and a case of beer."

Skye rolled her eyes.

Koenig hummed, making a note. "Agent Hunter, General Talbot is no longer pursuing you, and you have no apparent reason for maintaining loyalty to SHIELD. Why are you still here?"

Hunter paused for a moment, taking a deep breath and looking briefly at Coulson before answering. "Because, for once, I don't feel like someone's playing me."

Coulson glanced at Hunter sharply, then looked at Koenig, who was studying the machine's output. Koenig looked up at him and nodded.

"What is the current nature of your relationship with Agent Morse?" Coulson began in a steely tone.

"Nonexistent."

A surprised look flickered across Coulson's face. "Do you know of a way to contact her?"

"No, I do not."

"Did she leave you with orders or directives to complete in her absence?"

The corners of Hunter's mouth quirked up bitterly. "She told me not to die out there."

"Anything else?"

"No."

Coulson paused, as if reformulating his strategy. "You were romantically involved with her, is that correct?"

"On and off for five years, sir."

"When did that relationship end?"

"Last night."

"And what were the circumstances of it ending?"

"She told me there was something she was keeping from me. I broke it off."

Skye blinked. Hunter hadn't mentioned that part.

Coulson frowned. "Were you aware of Agents Morse and Mackenzie's plan to leave this organization?"

Hunter met his gaze steadily. "No, sir, I was not."

Coulson glanced at Koenig for confirmation. At Koenig's nod, Skye released a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

Coulson continued. "You said you weren't surprised by their departure. Why is that?"

Hunter hesitated. "Bobbi had spoken to me on several occasions about her reservations regarding your leadership of SHIELD. She hinted last night that she would be doing something to break away from it. I didn't know anything about the extent or timing of her plans. But I know her and what she's capable of. I think what she's done is bloody foolish, but I'm not surprised she's done it."

Coulson's expression was impassive, but Skye could tell from the creases around his eyes that he was troubled. "What were her reservations?" he asked evenly.

Hunter's response was frank. "She felt that you were too emotionally invested in your team, particularly in Skye, and might not be able to make a difficult call when it became necessary. She thought the resources and manpower being expended on Skye were excessive."

Skye's breath hitched, and a shock of anxiety twisted her stomach as she heard Hunter articulate the very thought that had been troubling her for weeks.

But he was still talking. "Bobbi also disagreed with your priorities in San Juan of preventing any civilian casualties and destroying the Obelisk. She's of the opinion that powerful weapons ought to be retained, to give SHIELD an edge over Hydra."

Coulson's gaze was probing. "Did you agree with her reservations?"

Hunter raised his eyebrows ironically. "If I had agreed with her, I probably wouldn't be here."

Koenig interjected. "Answer the question simply, please. Did you agree with Agent Morse's assessment of Director Coulson?"

"I did not. And I told her as much."

Skye suddenly felt a lump in her throat, and she wasn't entirely sure why.

Coulson was tapping his fingers thoughtfully.

"What do you think her plan is now?"

Hunter looked at Coulson steadily. "As I said earlier, as far as I know, Bobbi's committed to SHIELD. But it's Nick Fury's SHIELD, not this one. She's committed to taking down Hydra. She'll just go about it in her own way."

Coulson's fingers were still tapping. "Why do you think she never brought you in on her plans?"

Hunter's jaw tightened, and his voice was flat. "Possibly because I didn't respond well when she tried to feel me out. Maybe because she never intended to bring me in on it at all."

Coulson frowned. "Why would she have vouched for you to join SHIELD if she were planning on leaving?"

Hunter shrugged. "I don't know."

Coulson glanced at Koenig, who nodded.

Hunter saw the exchange and elaborated. "It could be that her plans weren't made until after I came along. It could be that she wanted me around in case a firefight broke out, expecting that I'd have her back."

"Would you have?" Coulson's eyes bored into Hunter's, his face grim.

Skye found herself holding her breath again.

Hunter broke eye contact, blinking. "I don't know," he said quietly. "If Bobbi were in danger, I'd probably defend her."

Coulson's tone was icy. "And if she weren't in danger? If she were attempting to leave and I ordered you to stop her?"

"I'd like to think I'd do the right thing."

"Which would be what, exactly?"

Hunter heaved a gusty sigh, and the words came out heavily. "I'd stop her. I don't think I could kill her if you asked me to. But I'd stop her."

Coulson nodded with cautious satisfaction, still studying Hunter with piercing eyes. "I wouldn't order you to take her out unless she gave me no other choice," he clarified. "Hopefully, that will be a bridge we don't have to cross. Do you have any idea what her agenda is from this point forward?"

Hunter shook his head. "No. But I'll tell you this - if you have actionable intelligence that you've hesitated to act on, she won't. So I'd be ready for that."

Coulson absorbed the warning, a troubled expression flickering across his face.

* * * * * * *

Coulson was at his desk, massaging his temples, when May silently entered the room. She approached the desk slowly, purposefully scuffing her feet on the floor to alert him to her presence.

"I knew you were there," he said lightly, lowering his hands to give her a tight smile.

"Sure you did," May replied, with a knowing smile of her own. She folded herself gracefully into a chair, not noticing the way Coulson's eyes lingered on her. "How did it go?" she asked quietly, looking back up at him.

"Hunter's clean," Coulson replied shortly. "I sent him off to help Fitzsimmons with inventory."

May pressed her lips together. "Tough break for him." Her eyes searched Coulson's, and Coulson nodded at the double meaning - both inventory and Bobbi's betrayal were tough breaks. "Do you think his loyalty is secure?"

"It seems to be," the Director replied with a sigh. "Though how it got to be that way, I have to admit I'm mystified."

A faint, proud smile just touched May's lips. "You have a way of inspiring loyalty," she said quietly.

"From some," Coulson qualified grimly. "Not from all."

May tilted her head, studying him. "Did Hunter say what he thought Bobbi might be up to?"

Coulson fiddled with his pen, unscrewing the bottom section from the top and then putting it back together. May recognized it as an anxious tic. "He warned me that if we had actionable intelligence we haven't acted on, she wouldn't hesitate to do so."

May's eyes widened just slightly. Coulson nodded, holding her gaze steadily.

"Well," she replied softly. "This could become interesting."

Coulson nodded again. "It could."

May watched him fiddle with the pen for a little while longer before she spoke. "Skye wanted to see you. She wants to give you Raina's note."

"Have you read it?" he asked, looking up to meet her gaze.

May shook her head. "No. But it seems to have upset her."

Coulson sighed, rubbing his temple with one hand. "Just what I need. First Bobbi, now Raina has to show up and make things more complicated." He closed his eyes. "Fury didn't get paid enough for this job."

May's lips twisted in a wry smile. "Good thing you're not doing it for the money."

Coulson chuckled almost in spite of himself, flashing her a weak grin. "What would I do without you?"

May's smile was smug. "Probably go crawling off to Stark looking for an easier job."

Coulson's eyes widened. " _That_ would be an interesting conversation."

* * * * * * *

"I heard Raina left something for you," Coulson opened mildly as he came into the Cage. He closed the door behind him.

Skye nodded to the space next to her on the cot, and Coulson came over to sit down heavily beside her. She silently handed him the folded piece of paper.

Coulson unfolded and read it, his forehead creasing. When he finished, he folded it back up and turned to look steadily at Skye.

"What do you think about this?" he asked neutrally, indicating the note.

Skye stiffened. "Are you kidding me?" she blurted out, blinking incredulously.

"Well, I don't know. It sounds like a pretty good deal. Family, identity, destiny?" Coulson studied her, a trace of real concern beneath his flippancy.

Skye shook her head vehemently, her eyes sparking. "There is no way in hell I'm going anywhere with _Raina_ ," she informed him flatly. "I don't care what she knows. I don't care if she knows the winning lottery numbers. I literally don't trust her as far as I could throw her."

Coulson grimaced understandingly. Then, "Skye," he said in a quiet voice, "you know we may never be able to find all of the answers you're looking for. Some of them we have. Some of them we will. But we may never know everything you want to know." He studied her again, this time all real concern, sans flippancy.

"I don't care," Skye repeated stubbornly. "I'm not going anywhere."

Coulson had the sense that she was only half talking to him, half perhaps to Raina or her own heart. But still, his relief was nearly palpable. "I'm glad to hear that," he said quietly. "We would miss you around here."

Skye nodded, her eyes welling up. "Me too."

They looked at each other for a tender moment.

"Hunter's clean," Coulson said, breaking the silence. "He'll be back on the schedule at his regularly appointed times."

"Oh - good," Skye said vaguely, as though she'd forgotten all about it. Coulson supposed she had a lot of other things to think about.

"Also -" Coulson seemed to hesitate. "I know we've been having you focus on learning to control the vibrations, but I need someone to take point again on tracking down whoever's been ambushing SHIELD teams. I had Bobbi working on it in your absence."

Skye's answering smile was more enthusiastic. "I think I can find time in my schedule," she quipped wryly.

"Good." Coulson smiled. "Let Simmons or May know if there's anything you need for that." He stood up. "I should go touch base with Koenig. We're still getting reports in from our teams. It seems like everybody's missing something." He caught Skye's frown. "Yeah. Apparently Bobbi was thorough."

Coulson sighed, and his composed exterior momentarily cracked, giving Skye a glimpse of the strain and pressure beneath it. "Thank you," she said quietly, "for letting me help."

He smiled tightly. "What do you want me to do with this?" he asked, holding Raina's note out to her.

Skye waved her hand dismissively. "Whatever. Burn it. I don't care."

Coulson's eyes twinkled. "Waste not, want not." He paused, scrutinizing her carefully. "You doing okay?"

"Yeah," she replied dully.

As the lock on the door scraped shut and the walls began to close back in around her, she wished she could say that with more conviction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the credit for Koenig's speech about the lie detector goes to the writer of "The Only Light in the Darkness" from Season 1. ;)


	16. Relocations

The rattle of the old hatchback filled the air as the car chugged slowly down the road. The seat belt pinched tightly across Skye's chest as she leaned over to press her nose to the window. The scenery was vaguely familiar, and while she couldn't place it, it stirred up a sense of dread in the pit of her stomach.

She glanced around the interior of the car, noticing with a vague feeling of strangeness that there was no one in the front seat, and only herself in the back.

_Huh._

Then the voices started, layering over one another like a discordant orchestra.

Her father's voice: "You're exactly where you're supposed to be. This is your destiny."

Raina's: "You belong with your own people, Skye."

Cal's again: "After you change, no one else will understand."

May's: "Poison tree, poison fruit."

Cal's: "Change is terrifying."

Coulson's, soft with sadness: "Bye-bye, Angel Eyes."

Skye opened her eyes as the Bus's intercom dinged, her heart fluttering wildly. May's voice came over the loudspeaker.

"Prepare for landing. Touchdown in fifteen minutes."

* * * * * * *

"Coulson, satellite feed is up. You guys are good to go as soon as Martin and Ramirez are in place."

"Copy that."

Ramirez' voice crackled through the comms. "We're in position."

"Okay. Here we go," Coulson said jauntily. After a pause, he added, "Remember to smile."

Hunter didn't say anything. May muttered, "I'll try my best."

Skye stifled a laugh.

They were all getting a little punchy after six days of constant mission mode. Because, apparently, SHIELD had had a _lot_ of actionable intelligence they hadn't acted on, and now they were in a mad rush to act on it all - or change it all - before anyone else could get to it. They'd spent the last 140 hours or so hopping from one op to the next, basically living on the Bus.

Well. Skye had been living there much longer than that. But now everyone else was there, too. And the Bus was in the air. That part was different.

Top on Coulson's priority list had been securing assets he didn't want falling into anyone else's hands. He had had an interesting phone conversation with Talbot after Hunter's interrogation, letting the Brigadier General know about the systematic security flaws SHIELD had discovered - after retrieving the quinjet - in the facility where the government was keeping all the confiscated SHIELD tech.

"Why didn't you tell me this before?" Talbot had demanded irritably.

Coulson had been his usual unflappable self. "We thought the knowledge might come in handy, in the event that we ever needed access to certain pieces of equipment."

"But why leave it here if you might want it?"

"Because, frankly, General, you're doing a better job of securing it than my people would be able to do right now with the resources we have. We do have to prioritize."

Talbot had grumbled audibly over the line Skye was listening in on. "And now you say there's a rogue element of your organization that knows the facility's weaknesses?"

"Yes. Which is why I recommend you take steps to strengthen them immediately."

"Dammit, Coulson. This is exactly why I wanted to bring you in when I had the chance. Another rogue organization that's broken off from yours. Don't you have any control over your people?"

"In my defense," Coulson had replied casually, "Hydra broke off from SHIELD before I became the Director. And they're a little bigger on control than I am."

"You're lucky I trust you, Coulson."

"Is that what this is?" Coulson had inquired with surprise. "Because I thought you didn't trust me at all."

"I trust you enough to look into what you're saying."

"Good." Coulson had disconnected the line, then said to May and Skye, "That went better than I expected."

The second priority, after Talbot, was relocation. Apparently SHIELD had kept tabs on as many as they could find of the gifteds who had escaped from custody during the Hydra uprising, taking a hands-off approach to those who stayed out of trouble. But many of them had abilities that could be useful - or dangerous - in the wrong hands. As a result, they were currently embarking on the twenty-third relocation they'd done in the last six days.

"What are this guy's special abilities again?" Skye heard Hunter ask quietly as they approached the building. "I'm losing track."

"This one manipulates fluids," Coulson clarified. "Which is why we've left him alone, in exchange for an agreement that he maintain residence at least 100 miles from the nearest major body of water. There's only so much you can do with a bathtub," he added. "But Lake Huron is a different story."

That was a different story Skye was going to have to remember to ask about in the future. "Okay," she said, bringing them up to speed. "Once you're inside, you're going to head to the west elevator and take it up to the third floor. Apartment 302."

"Copy that," Coulson confirmed.

"Ramirez, how's the alley look?" Skye clarified.

"Quiet as a mouse. Fire escape that we're right under."

"ICERs should be hot," Coulson said quietly.

"Yes, sir."

Martin and Ramirez had been part of another East Coast SHIELD installation, which had boasted three field agents before one of them disappeared the same night as Bobbi and Mack. Coulson had made the call to collapse the two facilities together and had sent the Bus to pick up their team and all of their gear. Running ops with five field agents instead of three made much more sense.

Skye didn't know the two men well yet. Martin was short and swarthy, with a usually intense expression and very little sense of humor to speak of. Ramirez was taller, easygoing. Sometimes he reminded her a little bit of Trip.

She tried not to think about that too much.

Coulson, May, and Hunter's signals stopped outside the apartment door, and Skye heard the knock over the comms.

She held her breath. The door creaked open.

"Mr. Abadi? Hi. I'm Phil Coulson, with SHIELD. These are my colleagues, Melinda May and Lance Hunter. You may be in danger. Can we come in?"

* * * * * * *

Vincent Abadi, a sturdily built middle-aged man with sharp features and curly dark hair, was initially suspicious, but after being reassured that they were not here to bring him back into custody, he let them come inside and explain to him the need for relocation.

"So, you think this other group might try to hurt me?" he asked gruffly.

"We're not sure," Coulson clarified cautiously. "It may be that they would want to bring you in as an asset to their organization. But I don't think that's something you're interested in."

"I just want to be left alone," Abadi growled, glaring at the three agents.

Hunter's fingers twitched in the direction of his ICER, and Coulson shook his head just perceptibly.

"And we would be happy to leave you alone, Mr. Abadi. Somewhere other than here."

Abadi glowered at Coulson, as if weighing the veracity of his words, before heaving a sigh. "Fine," he said resolutely. "When do we leave?"

"I can give you thirty minutes to pack your things. We'll take care of all the necessary arrangements."

Abadi disappeared into his bedroom, and Coulson breathed a sigh of relief. "Well," he said, sounding upbeat. "So far so good."

"So far," May observed dryly.

"If we hear the bath start running, I'm out of here," Hunter quipped.

May's answering glare wasn't quite as withering as it might have been a week ago. She'd been gradually softening toward him since his decision to stay with SHIELD, and Hunter was hopeful that perhaps his days of watching out for friendly fire were drawing to a close.

"Heads up," Skye's voice came unexpectedly into their ears. "Couple of suits walking in the front door."

May arched an eyebrow.

A few tense minutes passed.

_Knock, knock._

Coulson nodded toward the door as Mr. Abadi came out of his bedroom. "Are you expecting someone?" he asked in a low voice.

Abadi shook his head, blinking nervously. "No. What should I do?"

"Find out who it is."

"Who's there?" Abadi called, stepping closer to the door.

"Agents Smith and Jamison from the World Counterterrorism Agency. Mr. Abadi, we'd like to have a few words with you."

Coulson turned to May, mouthing, "World Counterterrorism Agency?"

May shook her head blankly. "No idea," she whispered.

"What do you want?" Abadi demanded. Coulson was suddenly grateful for his gruffness.

"We have an offer to make you," came the answer from outside the door. "A very lucrative offer."

Abadi turned to look at Coulson helplessly. Coulson's brow was furrowed in thought. "Ask for more information," he said quietly.

"What kind of offer?"

There was a rustling outside the door, then the agent spoke up. "We'd like for you to become a contractor for our agency. We're prepared to reimburse you very well in exchange for your unique services."

"They're recruiting super-powered mercenaries," Hunter muttered. "That's ironic."

"Ask them for a few minutes," Coulson whispered to Abadi.

He nodded. "Give me a few minutes," he called out irritably. "I'm not decent."

Coulson nodded approvingly. "Skye, is the alley clear?"

"Clear as glass."

"Keep an eye on it," he said quietly. "Ramirez, get the van. We're coming down the fire escape."

Abadi blinked at him as realization set in. "My - my things?"

"You remember that question people always ask about what you'd save in a fire?" Hunter asked, as Coulson walked over to the window and threw it open. Abadi nodded. "Grab that," Hunter said, pulling out his ICER to cover the door as Agent May did the same.

Abadi's eyes widened. He disappeared into the bedroom and came back quickly with a backpack. "Okay. Let's go."

Coulson glanced over at May, gesturing toward the window. She rolled her eyes at him. "You first, then Abadi. Hunter and I will cover you."

"Mr. Abadi?" came the call from out in the hallway, as Coulson was slipping out the window, his own ICER in hand.

"Just a minute!" Abadi called back, before following Coulson ungracefully out the window.

May nodded to Hunter. "You next."

"Ladies first," he attempted, keeping his ICER trained on the door.

"Don't push it."

Ah. _There_ was the withering glare.

Hunter grimaced and climbed out the window, then turned to cover May as she came through. The men in the hallway were beginning to pound loudly on the door. It wouldn't be long before they were breaking it down.

Coulson was already sliding down the ladder at the bottom of the fire escape. Ramirez pulled up in the van, and Martin leaned out the passenger side to cover the open apartment window.

Hunter heard the splintery sound of an impact against the door and traded alert glances with May. They both worked their way backward down the stairs to the lowest platform, Hunter checking below to see Coulson practically pushing Abadi into the back of the van.

"Get down there," May hissed, and Hunter tucked his ICER into his belt and flung himself down the ladder, pulling the sidearm back out as soon as his feet left the bottom rung. He nodded crisply at May to take her turn, and she scrambled down nimbly.

They piled into the back of the van, and Ramirez pulled away, just as two men in what were really rather nice suits burst out the open window, aiming some kind of weapons in the SHIELD team's direction.

Hunter and Martin got off ICER rounds at the same time, and the two agents on the fire escape crumpled as the van picked up speed. May and Hunter pulled the doors shut as they slipped into traffic.

The back of the van was quiet for a few minutes, except for the sound of four people catching their breath. Then Hunter spoke up, still somewhat breathlessly. "I recognized one of them. Jamison. I've worked with him before, in Belgium." He glanced over at Coulson. "He was on Bobbi's team."

Coulson's jaw set. "You think it's safe to say these were Bobbi's people?"

Hunter nodded slowly.

"'World Counterterrorism Agency,'" May repeated thoughtfully. "It's a little grandiose."

"At least it isn't a bloody acronym," Hunter grumbled under his breath.

* * * * * * *

A few hours later, Vincent Abadi had been safely relocated to a suburb of Las Vegas - complete with his own shiny new identity, courtesy of Skye - and the Bus was on its way to India for the last relocation on their list, with seven more hours of intercontinental flight before them.

Skye took a deep breath and let it out slowly, settling into a meditation technique May had taught her as the biofeedback monitors flashed at her quietly. She had spent the last forty-five minutes practicing her control.

That's pretty much what she had been doing with all the travel time in between relocations, when she wasn't sleeping or working out. She was getting good with the physical processes - heart rate, blood pressure, temperature - but somehow, control over her new abilities wasn't coming as easily. She could trigger the vibrations with painful thoughts, and she could bring down her heart rate and blood pressure while emitting them, which would often make them dissipate or even stop. But she couldn't keep herself from having them in the first place, and that made it too dangerous still for her to be out in the world. It might take only a moment of strong emotion, or a sudden surprise, to set her off, and even her initial response could be devastating.

Ward had been her trigger today. He was her trigger a lot of days, actually. The anger stirred up by thinking of him was one of the surest ways to get her stress hormones flowing. And less painful than some other things she could think about. The anger still felt safer, more controllable, than the grief.

Or the fear, which still crept up on her in unguarded moments, and which she tried never to think about.

Skye sighed in frustration. She couldn't shake the feeling that she was really close to figuring it out. It was like there was something she was missing, some key that would make it click, but it just wasn't clicking yet.

_Knock knock knock-knock knock_

Another welcome interruption. They'd been fewer and further between, lately, with how busy everyone had been. "Come in!"

She was expecting May or Coulson, the two people she'd seen most this week, but it was Hunter standing in the doorway. "Hey there," he said.

She blinked up at him in pleased surprise. She hadn't seen him face to face since the morning after the interrogation.

* * * * * * *

_The knock on the door came 15 minutes after she finished her workout with May, and she knew it was him._

_"Come in!" she called, pulling the elastic out of her ragged ponytail to put her hair back up more neatly._

_He opened the door, tub full of warm water in hand, and Skye came over, eyeing him uncertainly. His eyes were uncertain, too. "Hey," she said quietly._

_"Hey," he replied, offering the tub. She took it and set it down behind the screen, and he leaned against the doorframe, saying with affected casualness, "I guess you heard I passed the creepy Koenig lie detector test."_

_Skye cracked a faint smile, coming out from behind the partition and leaning against the wall. "Yeah," she replied softly. She looked at him for a moment. "I'm really glad you're sticking around."_

_He smiled self-deprecatingly. "Yeah, well." He folded his arms and looked down at his feet, then back up at her. "Guess I'm locked in now. Sworn my loyalty and everything."_

_"You're not big on loyalty?" Skye could have bitten her tongue the instant the words came out of her mouth. Clearly, given Hunter's responses to Bobbi and Izzy Hartley, loyalty wasn't his problem._

_"Not big on being locked in," he clarified. "I've been on my own for a while now. Didn't really expect I'd ever be part of an organization like this again - not voluntarily." He studied her for a moment, with what looked like a trace of regret. "I've never been a lifer, like you are."_

_Skye frowned. Her answering question was quiet. "Why did you decide to stay?"_

_Hunter's brows quirked, and he looked down at his feet. "I've seen a lot of shady leadership over the years, and a lot of angles being played. After a while, you stop believing that there's anybody out there with honest motives." Skye winced at his words. To her idealistic sensibilities, such a level of jadedness was tragic, though not as unthinkable as she might have considered it a year ago._

_"You're still pretty new to all this," Hunter continued frankly, and somehow it didn't sound condescending. "You'd be surprised how hard honest motives are to come by." He took a deep breath. "But I've been surprised by Coulson. If I have to be in this line of work somewhere, he seems like someone worth taking orders from."_

_Skye's eyes were moist. "He is," she said in a wavery tone, then cleared her throat and continued in a stronger voice. "He's the real thing, and May is, and Fitz and Simmons. And probably the Koenigs too, despite the creepy factor."_

_Hunter's faintly amused grin mirrored hers._

_"I'm - I'm really glad you decided to stay." Skye searched his eyes. "We need you."_

_Hunter laughed quietly. "Well, it's good to be needed."_

_She hesitated before probing more deeply. "How are you doing, about Bobbi?"_

_Hunter looked at her steadily for a few beats, then dropped his eyes to the floor. "It hurts," he admitted quietly. "It hurts not knowing how much of it was real and how much was just an angle. I don't suppose I'll ever know."_

_Skye's heart ached for him. She knew a little bit of what that felt like, though not as deeply as he did. "I didn't realize you were the one who broke things off."_

_Hunter peered at her strangely. "How did you know that?"_

_Skye's cheeks burned._ Crap _. She considered fudging, but decided just to come clean. "I - uh - the security camera feed of your interrogation was a pretty easy hack," she admitted, daring a glance at him. "So was the audio." She made an apologetic face._

_Hunter lifted his eyebrows, looking a little taken aback. "Well, the creepy factor just went up a few more notches."_

_Skye grimaced. "Stalker," she joked, pointing to herself, then abandoned the attempt at humor. "I'm sorry," she said in a subdued voice. "I just...I had to see it with my own eyes, you know? I had to know..." She trailed off, swallowing hard. "I had to know I wasn't being betrayed by another person I cared about."_

_Hunter nodded slowly. "I can understand that," he said grimly._

_Skye closed her eyes, sighing. "I'm sorry that you've been through so much," she murmured._

_"I'm hardly the only one," he deflected._

_"No, I know," she said. "But you must have gone through a lot to lose faith in everybody. I mean, I've been betrayed, but never to the point where I didn't have anyone left to trust. I've never...stopped believing that there are good people out there."_

_"Maybe you're better at that than I am," he observed lightly, glancing over at her. He held her gaze searchingly for a moment; then his eyes clouded, and he looked away. "Sometimes I wish I could still think that way." He shifted his weight, as if the confession made him uncomfortable, but his countenance looked clearer after he'd said it._

_Skye heard the longing under his words, and a lump rose up in her throat. "Well, stick around here," she said quietly, "and maybe you'll be able to."_

_"Maybe," he replied, mustering up a half-smile._

_They looked at each other for a moment, and then Skye broke eye contact, glancing over toward the screen. "I should probably de-gunk before the water gets cold."_

_"And I should probably close this door," Hunter agreed, standing up straighter. He grabbed the door handle, then paused, letting his fingers slip off it. "Thank you," he said lightly. "For being willing not to think the worst of me." He was trying to be casual, but the look in his eyes betrayed his sincerity._

_She blinked and pressed her lips together to forestall more tears. "Thank you," she answered quietly, "for not making me have to."_

_He nodded, hesitating before grabbing the door handle again. "See you at briefing."_

* * * * * * *

From morning briefing, they'd embarked on their globe-spanning relocation saga. And she hadn't seen him since then. Honestly, it felt a little weird.

"Hey, stranger!" Skye replied casually, her smile giving away her pleasure at his visit.

Hunter smiled in return, glancing from her to the biofeedback equipment strewn all over the table. "You ready to unplug? Time zones usually throw me off, but I'm pretty sure it's about dinner time back at the Playground." He proffered a plate, which Skye saw had a sandwich on it. "Peanut butter and grape jelly, as per usual. Thought you might be hungry."

Skye had, in fact, just noticed her stomach starting to rumble. "Perfect timing," she said appreciatively. "Thanks." Carefully, she pulled the sensors off her skin and came over to accept the sandwich from him. He held out a bottle of water, too.

Hunter nodded toward the biofeedback equipment. "Any luck with all of that?"

"Yes and no," she replied with a sigh, slumping against the wall. "Enough to know I'm on the right track. Not enough yet to get me out of here."

Hunter nodded, studying her thoughtfully. "It'll come. Give it time."

Skye rolled her eyes. "Great," she said dryly. "Because that's exactly what I want to hear."

Hunter winced apologetically.

Skye looked at him carefully. "How've you been?"

He shook his head in mock despair. "Awful. There've been far too few peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in my life in the last week."

Skye wrinkled her nose at him. "You know you secretly wish you could eat the way I do."

"I honestly don't know how you can train the way you do and eat the way you do," he said skeptically. "Makes me want to sneak kale and protein powder into your sandwiches."

"Don't you dare." Skye smirked and put the plate down on the table, then turned back to him, growing more serious. "Really, though...how are you doing?"

Hunter sighed, seeing he wasn't going to escape. "I've been okay," he replied straightforwardly, his facade of nonchalance crumbling. "Good days and bad days." To Skye's eyes, he suddenly looked very tired, as if carrying a heavy weight.

She nodded, studying him carefully. She glanced over at her computer, then back at him. "What are you doing right now?"

Hunter screwed up his face noncommittally. "Well, I was thinking about a good long nap before we get to India." He paused, seeing her disappointment. "What did you have in mind?"

"Company." She hesitated. "I think maybe we could both use some?"

Hunter nodded slowly, as if the idea appealed to him. "Let me go 'borrow' Ramirez' tablet. I think he's sleeping."

Skye smiled. "Sounds great."

* * * * * * *

They talked for almost two hours over FACE before Hunter's yawning prompted Skye to suggest they sign off for the time being. A good (if not overly long) nap later, the team gathered in the Command Center for a briefing on their final relocation.

"Kamala Singh," Coulson identified their target, displaying her picture on the screen. "Age 25. Was working at a telecommunications company in Pune when she was involved in an industrial accident. She woke up thinking she was going crazy, then realized she was detecting electronic communications passing through the air around her."

"Like e-mails and things?" Ramirez clarified.

Coulson and May both nodded. "E-mails, text messages, Internet - any electronic signal," Coulson clarified. "She can both detect them and amplify them. She's basically a walking wi-fi hot spot."

"And you thought you were good with computers," May observed wryly, glancing at Skye.

"Honestly, I'm kind of jealous," Skye admitted, wide-eyed.

"She would be a huge asset to any organization," Coulson elaborated. "However, she's also a liability, since there's no way to keep anything classified from her unless it's wirelessly inaccessible."

"Wow," Skye murmured enviously, hastily adding, "not that I'd, you know, want to get into anything classified."

Hunter shot her a knowing look, a teasing smile playing on his lips.

"She can detect anything within an area of about 100 square miles," Coulson continued. "We let her choose where she wanted to settle, as long as it was too far from any government or SHIELD facilities to obtain classified intel. We also have her on a travel restriction with which she's been fully cooperative. We'll be relocating her to another village in the same region, so she's still near family."

"Same drill, three door-knockers and two stalkers?" Hunter asked cheerily. Skye noticed that his countenance looked clearer than it had before. Maybe the nap had helped. Or the conversation.

"Yup," Coulson confirmed. "We touch down in forty-five minutes. Better go suit up."

* * * * * * *

"I forgot how hot India is," Ramirez muttered over the comms. The humming of cicadas in the village they were walking through was so loud that Skye could hear it in the background.

"Especially in the middle of the afternoon," May added dryly.

"Her house is the last one in this row, on your left," Skye directed.

"Copy," Coulson grunted.

Apparently the heat was getting to everyone. The body armor under their street clothes - which were more appropriate for a temperate climate than a tropical one - probably wasn't helping.

Skye heard the _rap-rap_ of Coulson knocking on the front door of the small, earth-brick dwelling. "Ms. Singh!" he called out.

There was no answer.

"Ms. Singh!"

"Nobody home?" May asked quietly.

"I'm going inside," Coulson muttered.

Skye heard a creak, some shuffling, and then nothing. "Fill me in, guys."

"Nobody inside," Hunter said quietly. "No signs of a struggle."

Skye tried to pull up an overhead view of the village, to no avail. "Sat surveillance sucks in this region. I've got nothing," she informed them.

"Let's ask around," Coulson said.

May and Martin both spoke the local language, so the two teams split up, trying to find someone who had seen Kamala Singh that day. After a little while, May found a woman who had been sitting outside her home in the wee hours of the morning when a couple of men had come to Ms. Singh's door. "Dark clothes, spoke English," May passed on. "She said Ms. Singh went with them willingly."

"Damn it," Coulson muttered under his breath. "We lost one." From the tone of his voice, Skye knew exactly the tight-lipped, pained expression he was wearing.

Everyone was quiet for a moment.

"It could be worse," May ventured diplomatically.

"It could be," Coulson acknowledged reluctantly.

Skye chipped in. "At least it wasn't the guy who melted down the munitions factory."

Coulson's sigh was audible through the comms. "Nothing we can do about it now. Let's head home and regroup."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "World Counterterrorism Agency" is actually pulled from the comics - it's the name of a spy agency that Bobbi/Mockingbird really did start at one point, at least in that universe. :)


	17. Fears

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've read all the updates up until this point and are wondering where you left off, I just added chapters 13-17 - so start on chapter 13! :)

Daylight was slowly fading into the ombré of sunset outside the windows of his office as Coulson closed the folder on his desk with a relieved sigh. "Well, that's the last one, for now. If Bobbi wants to go after anything else, she'll have to track it down herself. Or fight us for it," he added ironically.

May, leaning against the desk, quirked an eyebrow. Her response was sober. "Should we be anticipating that?"

Coulson grimaced noncommittally. "Beats me. You'd think if there was anything they wanted from us, they'd have taken it already." He sighed again. "I'm honestly not sure what their next move is. We'll have to keep our eyes and ears open and roll with the punches."

May's lips pressed together in grim agreement.

 _Brrrrrring!_ The phone rang, and Coulson picked it up quickly. "Yes?" May watched in concern as his countenance fell, and he rested his elbows on the table, pinching the bridge of his nose. "When?"

* * * * * * *

_Deep breath in through the nose, out through the mouth...heart rate slow and even...blood pressure steady..._

_**Fzzt** _

Skye took another deep breath, exhaling it slowly before opening her eyes to check the printout on the vibration monitor Fitz had tricked out for her. "Ha!" she crowed triumphantly. That was the lowest reading so far in response to stimulus.

As much as she was growing to hate the randomly-generated electrical shocks, delivered through any of the electrodes dotted all over her body, that she was using to test her response, she had to admit that watching those readings gradually decrease was totally worth it. And even though the shocks sucked, they were the best way she and Simmons could think of to simulate the element of surprise in a real-world setting that might trigger her vibrations.

_**Fzzt** _

The numbers on the vibration monitor spiked, and Skye's bottle of water flew off the table.

_Well, crap._

She bent to retrieve her water, noticing as she straightened that a transmission was coming through from Simmons, who was on "Skyewatch" that day. She clicked it through.

"Emergency briefing," Simmons informed her tightly. "I'll bring you along."

Skye held her breath.

* * * * * * *

Coulson cut to the chase. "We've had another attack on a SHIELD team, this time in Louisiana. Same drill as before - false intel, ambush, unconscious agents - but one difference this time. The entire team was knocked out, but only the female agent had needle marks in her veins upon waking." Brows were furrowed around the table, including Coulson's. "We're quarantining all three of them, just to make sure."

Simmons pressed her lips together tightly. "I'll make sure the lab is ready for samples." Every ambush meant another round of endless blood testing. Still, nothing had come of any of it. And this made fifteen agents total in quarantine for at least the next four months. That was a lot - especially given recent events.

No wonder Coulson looked grim.

"What was the bait this time?" May asked.

"The team was responding to an invitation, supposedly from a former SHIELD agent, to make contact - they were investigating it as a recruitment possibility. That's three now like that - Miami, Guatemala, and this one. Each time, we thought we were meeting up with a friendly. But clearly we weren't."

Skye pursed her lips, putting pieces together. "Well, all that information is out there now, in cyberspace. I erased our team's identities, but anyone who wants to could grab an identity and pose as a former agent."

Coulson frowned. "Have we made any progress with tracking these people down?"

Skye shook her head, feeling a little guilty. Despite working through the night far more often than she ought to be lately, she had found nothing but old trails - nothing fresh that would help them find the people who were doing this.

Coulson crossed his arms, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration. "We can't stop following up on former agents trying to make contact. We need every one we can get." He thought for a moment. "Is there any way to _detect_ intel that's coming from this source? We've been trying to track them down; but at this point, I'd settle for keeping our agents out of harm's way. If we can tell which tips are traps and prevent them from taking down any more of our teams, that would be a very welcome improvement."

 _Huh._ Skye blinked, her brow creasing thoughtfully. "Yeah," she said slowly. "Yeah, I think I might be able to find something." She began tapping at the keyboard.

"Was the team wearing gas masks?" May asked quietly. That was part of the new protocol Coulson had initiated after Miami for SHIELD agents responding to anonymous or unverified intelligence.

"They were," Coulson confirmed. "But it wasn't gas this time. The agents weren't entirely sure what knocked them out, but when they woke up, their ears were bleeding. Medical team thinks it may have been a sonic weapon."

"Does _SHIELD_ even have one of those?" Hunter asked with surprise, looking over at Fitz.

Fitz shook his head. "Too much, uh..." He scrunched up his face, turning to Simmons. "When you take out the wrong guy...?"

Simmons slid her hand reassuringly over his, and Skye, glancing at the screen, raised an eyebrow at the familiar gesture. "Too much potential for collateral damage and friendly fire," Simmons explained. "The designs were scrapped. As far as we know, there are none in existence."

Hunter nodded.

"Except apparently there may be," Coulson corrected. "Koenig, let's update our protocol to include ear protection as well as gas masks."

Koenig nodded, tapping away on his tablet. "On that."

Coulson rubbed his temples, exhaling forcefully. "Okay. Skye, let me know what you find out."

"Yeah," she said absently, absorbed again in her work. "I think I may be on to something."

"Everyone else," Coulson said heavily, "you know the drill by now."

The agents scattered to their tasks, and the transmission disconnected. Skye hardly noticed.

A few hours later, the concentration on her face melted into cautious triumph, and the tempo of her fingers on the keys sped up. Her eyelids were getting heavier, but she pressed on for a little while longer until, after waking up twice in a row with her forehead on the space bar, she reluctantly gave in to the need for sleep.

* * * * * * *

The rattling seemed quieter now than before, the glass cold against Skye's nose as she watched the scenery roll by outside the hatchback's windows. These hills were so familiar, but she still couldn't place them. She just knew they made her feel as if something was very wrong.

Skye sat back, feeling the seat belt anchor her securely to the seat. "Mom?" she asked, tasting the word carefully as she tried it out.

"Hmm?" Seated beside Skye in the back seat, May turned to her, tilting her head.

"Where are we going?"

From the front passenger seat, she heard Coulson's voice, strangely sad. "We're taking you home."

Skye scrunched up her face in confusion, looking back outside. The road curved up ahead, and as they came around the bend, it came into view: the sprawling brick building with peaked roofs and large windows.

St. Agnes.

They were taking her back to the orphanage.

The car faded, and suddenly Skye was in the lobby, the team towering around her. Coulson, May, Simmons, Fitz, Hunter - she didn't understand why everybody seemed so tall. Coulson was talking to a man whose collar marked him as a clergyman, the director of the orphanage.

"It just...wasn't a good fit," Coulson said sadly. "We wanted to keep her, but we couldn't. We didn't have the resources to support her. It was too much of a drain." He turned to look at Skye, and May stepped forward, putting her hand on his arm.

"We have to do what's best for everyone," she said firmly, and Coulson nodded.

"I have to make the hard call," he sighed.

"It's no problem," the clergyman replied. "We have room for her here. This is where she belongs." His voice sounded familiar, and a shock of horror washed over Skye as she put a name to the voice.

Cal.

"No!" she cried involuntarily, and one of the sisters stepped forward from somewhere, gripping Skye forcibly by the arm to pull her over to the director. "No!"

"It's okay, Daisy," the man said soothingly. "You're exactly where you're supposed to be. This is your destiny."

"You belong with your own people," came the mellow voice of the sister, and Skye looked up to see Raina's eyes boring into hers. "You are beyond _their_ comprehension."

"No!" Skye pleaded, her voice breaking.

"No one else will understand you," Cal intoned urgently.

Skye looked wildly back and forth between him and Coulson. May linked her arm with Coulson's, pulling him away. "Poison tree, poison fruit," she reminded him.

"No...no..." Skye whispered desperately.

"Change is terrifying," Cal reminded her, and Skye felt hot tears begin to spill down her cheeks. She locked eyes pleadingly with Coulson, whose heartache was evident in the lines of his face.

"Bye-bye, Angel Eyes," he said softly, and turned to leave. The rest of the team turned to follow him, one by one, looking at her sorrowfully.

"No - no!" Skye cried. "May! Fitz! Simmons! Hunter! Don't leave me!"

She stood in shock, the adrenaline pounding in her veins as grief and panic swirled around and through her. The team receded across the impossibly huge lobby, beginning to disappear one by one out the front door. She heard the rattle of the old hatchback - the Brodys' hatchback - as the engine roared to life.

"No! Please!" Skye heard her own voice crying out, and realized it was the voice of a little girl. "Don't leave me! Don't leave me!"

The nun with Raina's face grabbed her firmly by the shoulders, restraining her as she tried to run after them.

"No! Don't leave me!" Skye screamed. She twisted in Raina's grip, striking out frantically to free herself.

* * * * * * *

"Bloody hell!" A male voice trickled into Skye's consciousness, as her vision of the orphanage swiftly faded into the gray blankness of the Cage.

It was the middle of the night. It had been a dream.

Skye sat up in a panic, suddenly aware that Hunter was sitting beside her on the edge of the cot, rubbing his jaw where she had apparently just hit him. She vaguely remembered that it was his night to keep an eye on her.

"Remind me not to spar with you," he griped testily. "Hell of a right hook."

"What are you _doing_ in here?" Skye asked wildly. She looked around the Cage, noticing that all the loose items in it were flush against the walls. She must have been letting off some major vibrations during that nightmare. It was completely unsafe for him to be in there.

"Well, everything was already -" he gestured in a sweeping motion - "up against the walls, so I figured I wasn't in danger of being hit by anything flying through the air." He sounded irritable, and Skye glared back at him fiercely.

"You shouldn't be in here."

Hunter looked at her for a moment, irritation fading as a softness came over his face and voice. "You were screaming," he said, still a little defensively. "I couldn't just leave you."

_Don't leave me!_

Skye gasped quietly, and Hunter looked at her with confusion, apparently unaware of how his words had echoed her dream.

Skye crumpled, covering her face with her hands as sobs began to wrack her body. Hunter gingerly put an arm around her shoulders, and she leaned into him, wrapping her arms tightly around his waist, as if desperate for something to cling to.

"I was at the orphanage." She vaguely knew that wouldn't make sense to him - he didn't know that much of her story, after all - but the words just kept tumbling out of her mouth. "It was just like when I was a little girl, and the families I wanted to stay with sent me back, over and over and over and _over_ again. Only this time it was all of you. Coulson and May." Another sob shuddered through her, and Hunter rubbed her back as she wrestled for control. "They - they said I wasn't a good fit. Too much of a drain." She hiccuped. "Like what Bobbi said. Too much manpower, too many resources. And then - you all turned to leave."

Hunter wrapped his arm tightly around her shoulder, bracing himself as he felt pulses coming off her. He was beginning to second-guess the wisdom of coming in here, though he couldn't handle the thought of leaving her alone in this state.

After a few minutes, Skye's sobs began to quiet a little, and the rattling from her shock waves subsided. She sniffled and pulled back, suddenly self-conscious about the way she was draped all over him like that. If he had still been with Bobbi, it would have been downright embarrassing. As it was, it was awkward. She glanced up at him through her tears, but he didn't seem uncomfortable. Thank goodness. Then she didn't have to feel quite as uncomfortable.

She wrapped her arms around herself instead, and the words started spilling out again. "When my f- when Cal last saw me, before...everything happened, he told me that afterward, no one would understand, that everyone would be afraid of me. That I would be alone, and I could go to him. But I _wouldn't_ go to him," she said vehemently. "I wouldn't go near him. And I won't. But I..." She trailed off, her voice fading to a whisper as she articulated the fear she'd barely been willing to acknowledge to herself. "I really don't want to be alone again."

She bent double, burying her face in her hands as they rested on her knees, quieter sobs now shuddering through her body.

Hunter rubbed her back gently. To his surprise, he felt the raw burn of anger kindling in his chest - not anger toward Skye, but toward these fears that were tormenting her. Toward Raina, and Bobbi, and whoever else had the temerity to make Skye feel like there was any chance in hell they were going to give up on her.

He had to set the record straight.

"I know what it's like to be alone," he found himself saying, gently but emphatically. "And you aren't. I mean, look at them. Coulson jumped into a tunnel full of armed explosives to come after you. Fitz and Simmons are working 'til their fingers bleed and their eyes cross to find answers for you. You're the only person I've ever seen make Agent May smile with pride.

"These people are never going to leave you. Your - _Cal_ may have said that, but he doesn't know them. They'd die before they sent you away." He paused, then added softly, " _We're_ never gonna send you away."

At his words, Skye's sobs intensified momentarily, then began to subside, gradually quieting into sniffles. She nodded into her hands, still trembling from the exertion of her tears. "You're right," he barely heard her whisper. "You're right. I just needed to hear someone else say it."

"Well, I'm saying it," he murmured, rubbing her back reassuringly. Skye's distress had triggered his protective instincts, and he was vaguely aware that it felt nice, for once, not to have them thrown back in his face.

Skye wiped the tears from her eyes with both hands, then looked around for tissue and settled on the crumpled T-shirt she'd been wearing earlier that day. She mopped the goo off her face, trying not to feel self-conscious about it.

She turned to find Hunter looking at her steadily. "You're a remarkable woman," he said frankly, in a quiet voice. "This team needs you."

"Thank you." Tears brimmed again in Skye's eyes. She was mildly surprised at Hunter's candid praise, but too grateful to overthink it. "I - I should probably let you get back to sleep," she said shakily.

"Okay," he replied softly, his eyes searching hers. "You gonna be all right?"

Skye nodded. "Yeah." She sniffed hard. "I'm going to try to go back to sleep. Maybe I'll have a dream that's not a nightmare." She forced a watery smile.

Hunter nodded hesitantly, then stood up, offering a hand to pull Skye to her feet when she moved to follow him. She walked him over to the door, which he opened, turning to face her.

"Thank you," Skye said quietly. She appreciated it - more than he knew.

"Any time," Hunter replied seriously. "Though I hope you don't have to go through this again."

Skye smiled faintly. "Me too."

"You're not alone," he added softly. "Remember that."

Skye hesitated for a beat. "Neither are you," she reminded him earnestly.

They stood there, holding one another's gaze for a moment, and Skye found herself wishing he didn't have to go. But it was the middle of the night, and they both needed to sleep.

Hunter caught her lightly by the arm as she turned away, and she turned back, looking at him questioningly. Something in his face seemed to have changed, his dark eyes radiating an unfamiliar intensity.

He hesitated for a moment. "Come here," he murmured huskily, and gently drew her closer, cupping her cheek in one hand and leaning in to bring his lips to hers.

Skye stiffened at first in surprise, and Hunter loosened his grip on her arm, shifting as if to pull back. But then something seemed to burst in Skye, and she impulsively pressed into the kiss, a tingly warmth spreading through her body as it dawned on her how much she really did want this. She slid her hands up around Hunter's neck, feeling the warmth of his skin under her fingers, carding them through the short hairs at his hairline.

Emboldened by her response, he wrapped a strong arm around her waist, pulling her tightly against him, and tangled his other hand up into her hair as their kisses grew more confident.

This was crazy, Skye thought vaguely. But the craziest part perhaps was how utterly right it felt - as if the pain and chaos and heartbreak of both their worlds was fading into this safe place of warmth and strength, softness and security. Fear, uncertainty, and alienation were burning away as Lance Hunter's touch ignited explosions of relief in her body and in her heart, and she felt an exquisite, familiar ache rising up inside her, instead of an endless well of grief and fear.

"This is crazy," she murmured against his lips.

"Unexpected," he managed between kisses. "But not crazy." He kissed her again, soundly, as if sharing in her sense of relief, then bent in to brush a kiss to her neck. Skye suddenly felt weak in the knees. The room seemed to tilt, and for once, it wasn't from an earthquake.

Hunter returned his lips to hers, then walked her back a step and pushed the door closed with his foot. He backed up until they were pressed against the wall before returning his attention to Skye's neck. He knew what he was doing, and Skye felt the warmth in her body beginning to intensify pleasantly into heat. She let the analytical part of her mind shut off entirely.

Hunter felt the change in her response and smiled, enjoying the reaction he was able to elicit from her. He was pretty sure she hadn't felt this good in a long time, and he liked being responsible for that. He dipped down to dribble kisses along her flawless collarbones - which, truth be told, he hadn't been able to help noticing from the moment he first laid eyes on her. That black v-neck shirt she always wore didn't make it easy.

Skye was melting into his touch, tracing her fingers along his arms, when Hunter hissed softly in pain and pulled back, visibly fighting to keep his expression steady.

"What is it?" Skye asked, alarmed.

He didn't mean for his face to give away anything, but she saw it anyway. Something had happened. She had done something to him. And he was shaken.

She jumped away from him, letting out a strangled cry as fear and shame crashed over her mercilessly. "Go," she choked out, turning away. "Go before I hurt you."

"Skye," he began softly.

"Please go," she whispered, cutting him off. Her eyes were burning, and she heard the table legs begin to rattle. She was losing control again, and it terrified her. Hunter reached a hand toward her, and she ducked away, fearful of hurting him by touching him. "Please," she pleaded.

He stood there, a conflicted mixture of confusion and concern in his eyes. "Skye...I'm sorry - I didn't -"

"Just _go_ ," she repeated more forcefully. She pulled the door open, bumping it into him.

He yielded and left, looking back at her uncertainly one last time before closing and locking the door.

Suddenly she was alone. Skye stood, motionless, letting her momentary peace and security shatter to the floor like the glassware in the lab at the Party House. A cacophony of rattling filled her ears, gradually subsiding as her heart rate came back down.

Of course, she reflected bitterly, she should have known better. Normal and real and right were just a memory at this point. Normalcy, especially such safe and precious normalcy, was something she wasn't sure she'd ever be able to hope for again. You didn't get to live a normal life when you went around emitting shock waves and triggering seismic activity.

_I guess that extends to relationships, too._

She'd cried out all her tears. She had nothing left but to curl up on her cot numbly until welcome oblivion overtook her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reminder - the Brodys were the foster family Skye told Ward about early in the first season, one she really wanted to stay with. She even tried out calling her "Mom." But in the end, they took Skye back, saying it "wasn't a good fit." (Of course, we now know it was all part of SHIELD's plan to keep her safe.)
> 
> May's comments in the dream are not at all meant to imply that I think that she is mean or heartless; they're just expressions of Skye's fears, and echoes of what Skye herself is thinking in the secret places of her heart.
> 
> The sound made by the electroshock machine is a tribute to the episode of AoS that hooked me for good. :)


End file.
